Veils
by Virodeil
Summary: For Big Bang Challenge 2011. A youth from the recently-sacked Eregion, reared to fear and loathe the Ainur and look down upon people other than Ñoldor, finds himself injured and under the mercy of the very peoples he despises and looks down upon.
1. Notes

Title: Veils

Author: Eärillë

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Character Death, Sensitive Topics, Spiritual Possession, (implied and mild) Violence

Summary: A Ñoldorin youth from the recently-sacked Eregion, reared to fear and loathe the Valar and Maiar and look down upon people other than Ñoldor, finds himself injured and under the mercy of the very peoples he despises and looks down upon. How will he survive? Until when? But perhaps, a miracle might happen…?

Place and Timeline: Ereigion-Rivendell, Middle Second Age

Characters: Elrond, Ereinion, Erestor, OFC&OMC Elves, OFC&OMC Maiar

Beta-reader: Vanimë (Thank you, Vanimë!)

Artist: Elleth (Thank you, Elleth!)

a href=".com/albums/1003/ladyelleth/niphredil_"img src=".com/albums/1003/ladyelleth/niphredil_" alt="Cúmenel looking at Niphredil in a twilit glade; art by Elleth"/a


	2. Part 1

**Part 1**

Blood… Heat… Scream…

I stumble drunkenly, uncaring, unfeeling. Sweat and blood and ash cling to my body, my wounds, my bruises. My battered hröa bashes against burnt, despoiled jagged surface at times, when my fëa is too frenzied by the onsetting madness to keep it balanced despite everything. But it does not matter; nothing matters, now.

I do not know where I am going. Just away, away, away – far away – from where my father was slaughtered – after watching my mother being raped and my little siblings being burnt alive. But nowhere is far enough. The smoke chokes me, even as it blinds me, stinging my eyes; and it carries the stench right into my lungs – home, workshop, clothes, blood, flesh—

No no no no. Pain, pain.

My own soul is burning; maddened and torn by the recent memories, until it shuts itself against all the recollection – the world – and bears the wounds alone. Nothing is around me, as far as I am concerned. No one bothers me. Let the orcs have me, take the shell that is my body. The Halls of Mandos will be a welcome relief…

I stumble again, and fall sprawled on the jagged, tortured earth. Too much pain. Too much torment. My mind folds into itself and I lose the ties to reality.

Melodies tug at my soul, then, faint and sounding afar, but insistent. The notes become louder the more I hear it, yet firm and still as beautiful. It is as if my mind is coaxed to unfold itself, to willingly return to the prior vulnerability that it has forgotten. And it resists, but not for long. Like all other Elves, song – and Song, and Music – has been a part of me since my conception, and this – sweet, light, even slightly playful – strain of melodies wakes up the primal core of my being. Caressing, cradling, guiding…

A male voice follows, an Elven voice. It matches the melodies perfectly, and it seems so familiar… The cadence, the style, so natural. I want to reach out to him, to say I appreciate his singing and his music…

And the smell. – My nose catches it even as the ellon sings. The carnage of my homeland is not far, and I recoil from it: the undertone of burning and blood and foulness. But it is not the only scent that my nose detects. Overpowering it is the smell of cleanness and fresh herbs, so contrast and stronger that it finally overrides the stench of slaughter.

I begin to be aware of my hröa after some inhalations; naked, only covered by a thin blanket, with my hair unbound. I search for pain, but find none. There is only numbness on several parts of my limbs, torso and sides, and a deep weariness that makes me think I have been turned into stone some time when I was unconscious. What has happened? Who has rescued me? This does not sound and smell like a camp of the Enemy. – And I have experienced it first-hand, although just briefly.

A finger ghosts over my left eye, then my right one. Dampness trails in its wake, slightly cold. It then traces my lashes with the same cool wetness, almost in a teasing manner. The soft gesture coaxes the muscles of my eyelids into movement, and I capitulate with ease, and gladly.

I blink, and blink again. My surroundings are dim, and I am thankful for that. (It looks like a tent, from the poles and thick-woven fabric I can see above me.) Someone is sitting beside me. And I am lying on a camping pallet, judging from how close the earth is to my back. I can hear the low breathing and sense the fëa – a male. But he neither speaks nor touches me again. What is going on? Am I really in nonhostile, nonthreatening company?

But he moves, then, and I am gently braced into a seating position. A soft whistle from his lips prompts the tent's flap to open, admitting another person with a strong scent of herbs and fatigue about him; and it tells me, too, that he was the one who sang me into awareness.

I wish to thank him, but the words never pass my lips, for some reason I do not know myself. And then it is too late, because the singer is leaving me, and the new person – maybe a healer? – takes on his position, all without a word.

Now I can feel what I failed to notice before: tension. It was subtle, when I was yet with the singer, but now it has escalated to a tangible level, as those strangers exchange duty between them. I can sense reluctance in them as well, and that just baffles me more. Something about me – or in me – must have triggered it; but what? This half knowledge will only serve to upset me if it is not soon rectified. – I try to quell the juvenile urge to throw a tantrum or demand incessantly for the other half of the piece, and barely succeed. (My only excuse is that I am yet forty Sun-years old.)

The new person, whom I now really suspect is a healer, brings a cup to my lips. When I refuse to open my mouth, wary of the cup's content, he sighs and murmurs, "It is but water – as clean as we can get here – to ease your throat."

His voice is rougher than the singer's was, somehow not entirely Elven in nature. Who is he?

He presses the rim of the cup to my lips and uses it to part them slightly. He will not take no as an answer, then. And I find it distasteful. Who is he to order me so, even without revealing his identity? He is not my father or mother!

And they are dead, butchered by the crowing and leering orcs…

No – no!

I turn my head to the other side from where he is sitting, but fail to inch away from him. Memories that I have managed to bury deep in my mind now surface, and with that the choking and tearing emotions I was saved from by my unconsciousness.

A naked sword, gleaming like the coldest ice under the stars and smelling like orcish blood, stands leaning against the wall near the flap of the tent, ready for instant use. A part of me sees it as a way to end my misery, while another part wishes me to use it to demand answers from this… creature. But alas, I am yet too weak to even crawl there, let alone use it for any purpose.

And how comes such a beautiful blade to the possession of a non-Elf?

Distraction, distraction. – I must distract myself from the memories or go mad. I must lock them back where they were or throw them out…

"Trying to forget it will never make it go away."

My head whips around to the source of his voice, faster than I think I can do. He is gazing at me intently, knowingly, and he does not seem bothered by my outraged glare.

I attempt to speak, to snap at him, but my throat pains me when I open my mouth and suck in a breath. I wince feebly and turn away again. The rage goes cold almost in an instant, faced by the shameful reality. – He has been bracing my back so that I can sit upright, and he never lets go of it regardless of whatever I do to him.

But I do not wish to be indebted to anyone, less a non-Elf.

Water streams into my mouth, and I instinctively swallow. Before I can protest or reject his underhanded way of putting liquid into my body, another mouthful follows, and then another. Last, he brings a spoon into my mouth, and I taste honey – thick, rich, sticky honey – on it. I cannot spit it out, as it will just invite more trouble to me, so I am – yet again – forced to swallow it down.

What am I? Some kind of lifestock to be force-fed – perhaps for later slaughter?

Before I have time to properly build into the previous rage, however, he is already gathering his things and returning me to lying on the pallet. And then, with the same briskness, he leaves. No name. No farewell. Not even a smile.

I seethe alone and fruitlessly. How dare he do that to me? I am a patient here! He must not be a healer, then, despite the indications. Healers are gentle, and caring, and understanding. – I feel so uncomfortable, confined, and angry. Yet a sliver of guilt finds its way into my heart, twinging it and telling me that I was too harsh and haughty to him, while I should have been thankful for his assistance and care.

Some time passes, but neither of the two men returns to me. Outside, I can hear people pass by either in haste or restlessly, and around me are the murmurs of refugees: traumatic, wondering, lamenting. An air of sorrow, shock, denial and fear flood my senses as I open myself further into my environment. I am not alone…

I drift into an awkward, disquieted state of reverie without my knowing. My senses dull and gain a dream-like tinge, surreal and slightly distorted. The gate to my memories opens as my guard slackens, and I relive, again, the slaughter of my family. – I do not know if I scream, but I return to full awareness with my throat raw and throbbing, and someone patting my shoulder firmly.

He is neither the singer nor the non-Elf. And to my chagrin at myself, I am somehow disappointed with that.

He is less gentle too. In something almost like a growl, he demands what I wanted to achieve, shrieking like a dainty elleth raised in a city encountering a fat worm and projecting it mentally for all to hear. My cheeks burn with shame and humiliation, but the state of my throat makes retorting an agonising chore. And there is a dome of something – someone's Working – that prevents me from projecting my thoughts to anyone. (Likely, it is the one that cut out my purported projected mental scream.)

But, after mocking me so, he does not leave. I glare sullenly up at him. But that, too, does not bother him at all. Like it did not bother the non-Elf… These people are confusing, and maddening in their own ways.

I am not accustomed to people not being affected by my stare too, to be honest with myself. I could usually cow or coax people – even my elders – by glaring at them or giving them a pleading look. Yet this person returns me stare for stare, and I am in turn cowed by it. It is like being forced to swallow a foul concoction, this new and unwelcome experience. And it is also akin to seeing myself in a mirror and finding an ugly face staring back at me. I hate it…

The newcomer uncovers an oil lamp sitting on a nightstand beside the pallet. Now I can see him properly, and note the faint sneer curling his lips. (Perhaps this is what he has aimed for by illuminating the tent? Who knows? He seems like the type of person who likes to bask on someone else's suffering.) I intensify my glare, and he suddenly chuckles.

"Be careful, little one, or your eyes will pop out of your head. I have no wish to be confronted by Elrond or Erestor about a folly which is not mine."

I flush with indignation and further humiliation. Turning my face away from the range of the light, I clench my jaw and slowly curl my hands into fists under the blanket that wraps me as far as my torso. He dares mock me this far! Has he always displayed this discourtesy to anyone he meets? Or, if not, how did I wrong him? I could not control my doings when I was sleeping! And the obliteration of my homeland is a fresh horror that no Elf can really be stoic about. Does he not know about these, then? Is his heart too numb for even a sliver of tact?

He lets out an unmistakable snort. My head whips around so fast that a muscle knots painfully at the side of my neck. I grimace, whilst giving him an automatic glare. He just laughs, rough and harsh and taunting. (I admit, my glare might look like a squint, given my current pain. – But he should not laugh at an injured person's misery. It is so cruel!)

His sneer cannot be mistaken for anything else, when he stops laughing. And his words afterwards stabs me deeper than before: "Are you done whinging now?"

Whinging! As if I were a child of ten–!

But more piercing is his gaze, boring down on me with an abrupt solemnity and intensity. "I repeat," says he," are you done whinging? Because I do not wish to be responsible for undue distress that you cause to yourself needlessly. And also, if you are done lamenting the impotence of your glare, you had better rest now and save your recovering strength for the journey later. We cannot stay overlong here, while the Enemy's minions are bound to catch up and ambush us."

And then he is gone, covering back the lamp and slipping out of the tent so soundlessly that it is as if he were a shadow.

If I were able to move my limbs, I would have kicked off the blanket and chase after him to deal him a blow with my own two hands. People were never this insolent in Ereigion! Admittedly not all of them were good; but at least they never showed it blatantly like this.

… But then I recall a minor snippet in the one-sided conversation (if it can be called that) that he conducted. – Elrond. – The name tickles at my mind, its background half-way formed. Where have I heard it? Whom does it belong to? In what station? Somehow he reminds me of the High King Gil-Galad, of whom the people of Ereigion were afraid to name, not wanting to incur the wrath of Lord Telperinquar (and later, the fake, traitorous Lord Annatar). Someone important… Well, am I important, then, being in the thought of that elusive personage? I like the notion of it, yet dare not hope for it to be true. Above all, my parents had taught me caution when regarding everything. (It was vital when working in a forge or workshop, and when dealing with the subtle society of our little realm.)

All the thinking and anger tire me out, though. But I cannot sleep.

I close my eyes, and will my soul to relax. The recent encounter with the rude man keeps playing before my eyes, all the same, refusing to disperse. I attempt to even out my breath, to no avail. And the rising level of noise outside only serves to distract me further. I want to eavesdrop, but have no more strength left.

It is a torture that I would imagine being devised by the Enemy's minions: I am suspended between the state of reverie and full awareness, my mind laden and adulled, and my strength sucked out. There is no warmth left in me, and it is as if my fëa has shrivelled – like a log caught on fire. I cannot scream nor beg for help in mind-speech because someone has put a ward preventing it around me, yet my throat is too raw and hurt to do it physically.

I am indeed trapped, as I was never before, even when my homeland was ransacked and razed by the orcs.

I hate those three people for it. I would hate them with a passion if my strength allowed it. But this hollow hatred tears at me, and it put more torment to my fëa and hröa—

Someone comes into the tent and sits beside me. But I am too far gone now, and my weighted mind is clouded by a haze of confused emotions.

A pair of blue-grey eyes – so weary and old, filled with the burden of horrible experiences – penetrate the fog and stare right at my soul. I cower, but cannot flee – except to Mandos.

`We never mean you harm,` says a male voice. The singer. I recognise the voice.

`Rest in peace. When you wake up, you will find yourself in another place, hopefully far away from here.`

And my hröa and fëa obey at once, too weary to refuse out of pride and too tormented to care about it.

Melodies burst forth once more, coming from his fëa, and the tumbling notes soothe my being, like no other before it. I do not know how long he sings, because his wordless song echoes pleasantly in my spirit and luls me into a state of rest, leaving him to disentangle me from the chaos I have wrought upon myself. It must be a painstaking chore, I dimly think; and yet he never complains, or gives out the song grudgingly, or half-heartedly, although he must have seen what I have thought of him and his companions…

Shame once again comes to the fore of my mind. But the melodies do not wash it away. And with my acknowledging what I have done, the tangled ruffles in my spirit disappear. The song floods my whole being, buoying me on its currents like a baby cradled to the bosom of his mother. And finally, I fall into a deep healing sleep.


	3. Part 2

**Part 2**

I wake up to the realisation that I slept with my eyes closed, and my naked body wrapped in a silken cloak that smells like a peaceful night and protection, and also to the jolting trot of a horse beneath me.

A pair of arms press me to the front of a warm body, keeping me from falling. It has been long since last Atar treated me like this… He knows I does not like it anymore after I passed the age of 15, so why does he do it now?

But the smell of the man behind me is not like his, at all. And we seem to be quite in a hurry, and people are afraid of pursuit…

Wrathful screaming, helpless screaming. A pair of trembling hands lifting me high to the suffocating air and tossing me away from the carnage that had been before my very eyes. Flame crackling; hungry fire, charred little bodies. —

I would curl into myself were I could. Now I realise that the man holding me is not my father, because my father is dead – in a most agonising manner, I reckon, although I dare not think further about it. And alongside the stark reality, I also gain the full feeling on my nerves.

My searing nerves.

I whimper. I cannot help it. Compared to when I last awoke, the pain now is so excruciating, blinding my senses for a long moment before I adjust on sheer will. Why now? Why only now? Why not when I first awoke, when I was safe – laid on a non-moving bed?

The man's breath warms my right ear. My ear tip twitches. Then he whistles, low and soft, and I am soon distracted from my pain and discomfort. – The singer. I am with the singer again. But why does he not sing?

A finger caresses my temple gently, moving through my hair. Tears gather behind my eyelids, threatening to fall. How many times had Amil done that to me, even against my protestation, despite my growing age? Now I rue the complaints most bitterly. She is out of my reach…

The horse's smell is on his hand, underlying the whiff of medicinal herbs and the stench of old orcish blood. Exhaustion weights it, but does not make it falter.

I open my eyes slowly, aware that Vása is perched on her heavenly throne. (So used to darkness, I am afraid her bright light might hurt my sight.) The man is still stroking my temple – now slightly upwards – with a finger. And now I can see a bracelet circling his left wrist, made of a beautiful opal carved into a large, rather fat ring that fits his forearm well. But it is – should be – a woman's piece of jewellery; I can clearly see that the carver meant it to be worn by a woman.

It should be none of my concern, if not for the power I can feel coming gently out of it and into the man's body. Unearthly power, not of Elven Working. And its power is boundless, limitless, unlike any craft of ours – and I find a desire wake in me to possess it for myself, to use the power as I wish.

The light reflects off of the bracelet as if mocking me, and I spy an inner glow within its heart, tempting but unreachable. It is powerful but aloof, distant and disdainful towards my coveting it.

How can it know? Does it have a mind of its own?

But regardless, it does well in deterring me. With visible effort (which is not all due to my injured state of body, admittedly), I lift my face a little and stare around, trying to gauge where we are, bending my thoughts away from the bracelet. I seldom went out of Ereigion, and never reached beyond five leagues away from its borders. The singer, however, told me that we might get far already when I woke up, and so I wish to see if it is true.

I stare ahead for a moment. Then, only able to see the heads – unkempt, dirty and sometimes caked with blood – of the people walking on foot or trotting on horseback before me, stretching in haphazard columns until they are swallowed by the hazy horizon, I shift my head to the left and peek through the corner of my eye. (The man has a good grip on me; too good, in fact, that it is rather hard to move as I wish.)

But I find only more bedraggled people there, refugees and soldiers mingling together, and I see the same on the other side. Everything is hazy further around us, also, everywhere I look, and I find it disconcerting. The sound of water is prevalent in the air, and my mind takes it as why we are fenced by fog, but my instinct still harbours some suspicion. (And despite the acceptance, I still cannot fathom why there is sheets of mist when it is in the middle of the day.)

The man never ceases his low whistling. It is a welcome change to the "clip-clop" of tired hoofs and the "srek-srek" of trudging feet. It is a background noise that is pleasant to the ears and manages to distract me from the fearful, restless murmurs surrounding me. We are like a disturbed beehive, ready to explode out on the slightest nudge. But if bees are dangerous when stirred, I believe we shall be in danger ourselves if we are scattered.

I only realise the other purpose of the whistling when it is already too late. My eyelids drop shut on their own volition, and sleepiness comes down on me like a gentle mist descending upon the water. (The cloak also hugs me, as if a gentle, warm night solidified into a tangible thing and wrapping me in its protection.) My head lolls towards the man's neck, as I slip into another deep healing sleep.

He has tricked me. Strangely, though, it does not evoke any rancour in my heart when I next gain full awareness of my surroundings. There is a lingering peace in my being, and a dreamlike quality that only enhances the peace. – And he is there, the singer, sitting nearby with a few other people, talking in low, worried tones over a cold meal – or so I smell.

And I hurt no more, from the bodily pains that I suffered. And I am also no longer on horseback, but instead lie on a blanket on the grassy earth. Birds sing above me, in the tree… It is odd, surmises my spirit, but I do not know why – I cannot explain it to myself.

I move my fingers, trying to alleviate the stiffness on them, relieved that there is no pain involved in the attempt. It has an added bonus, though, apparently. The rustling sound my fingers create attracts the attention of the singer.

He scoots to where I lie, asking, "Are you hungry?" And my stomach replies promptly with a growl, not heeding my mind's command. I blush deeply.

He chuckles. With a hand gesture over his shoulder, he seems to summon one of his companions to him. He manoeuvres me around, then, until I am braced against his front. Only now I see that his companion bears a bowl of congealing soup and a cup of water. As not appealing as the soup looks, I cannot help but salivate in anticipation of filling my stomach, empty for too long.

I lift a hand to receive the cup that is offered to me. – I try at least… and fail. I turn my head away, hiding my tears of frustration. Have I fallen so low as to be spoon-fed? It is shameful enough that I am braced against someone's front like a toddler learning to eat. Must I complete the act by drinking and eating from another person's hand?

But my stomach chooses this very moment to let out a more persistent growl. I clench my jaw. My body has betrayed me most shamelessly, and right now I despise it.

And a spoonful of the disgusting gravy-like substance is pressed between my lips. Argh – they are so forceful! Have they never known any courtesy?

The singer and his companion practically force-feed me. I cannot even spit out the cool (not even tepid!) semi-solid substance, as the singer clamps my mouth shut and works my throat gently to force me to swallow each time. Rape, it is rape, I tell myself. However gently it is done, it is done without my willingness, forced. Tears cloud my vision, so I close my eyes, and retreat deep into myself, numbing my hröa and willing my fëa into an unfeeling state. That, at least, I can do.

Alas, I cannot flee from the dreams that my subconscious mind conjures in lieu of reality. The vivid recollections of Ereigion's demolition returns to haunt me, and I have nowhere else to escape to, again. Every moment of it pierces me just as deeply and sharply as before.

Then a blinding light cleaves through the memories, shattering them into pinpricks of colours and sending them towards the fringes of my mind, scattered as if they are weak and inconsequential. But it does not hurt me, and instead guides me into a deeper sleep, where I can rest safely without the disturbance of dreams. My spirit seems to recognise my saviour's, but – for the love of Arda – I cannot recall who it is. –

My fëa and hröa slowly ease open their links with reality after a while. And I return to consciousness – to the slow, deep breathing and the rhythmic heartbeat of a strong but lean body, onto whose warmth I have unknowingly draped myself.

My head rests upon somebody's chest, and my right cheek and nose are pressed to it. I am practically snuggling and cuddling to this unknown man.

My cheeks heat up. I am glad that everyone else seems to be asleep, so – hopefully nobody will ever see me in this compromising position. I cannot inch away towards the empty space beside this sleeping body, as his hands are wound around my torso, thus hampering my ability to roll over. (I do not think I can move too much yet, anyhow, judging from the stiffness of my muscles and joints born of long disuse.)

I faintly recall the man's smell – cool breeze and damp grass, underneath the layers of travel and battle odors. But like the fëa of my saviour, I cannot put a name to it.

Twilight greets my sight when I open my eyes. Rána is in full bloom, then. I would love to see his vessel, beautiful at this time, but my position does not permit me to do so. – Yet regardless, it provides me an ample light to observe my surroundings, and I use the chance well.

Rows and rows of people are sprawled on the ground, with grass and – seemingly – whatever garment they could find as bedding. The faces are haggard and etched with recent horror, and they – all of them – sleep with eyes closed. The stench of blood and days of accumulating filth make me gag, and aware that I am cleaner than most of the refugees. (Why?)

I can sense and hear movements in the perimeters of the makeshift camp, and know that we are guarded as we sleep. – But how if we are to be ambushed now? How well can those gaunt-faced men and women and children fight for themselves, barely awake and sluggish with bone-deep exhaustion? Their state of body must not be far better than my own; and judging from my earlier memory, they have even less rest than I did.

How far are we from the nearest sanctuary? Is there even something like that in Middle-earth, now?

My parents often talked in whispers in Amil's jewel workshop or in Atar's blacksmith forge, when they thought I could not hear them, minding my little siblings. Sauron's power had been growing steadily, in the absence of real opposition from the free peoples of Middle-earth. He moved slowly but surely, methodically, cutting routes of supply and escape, ruining supporting villages, until the larger bases he aimed for crumbled like a trapped animal dying of cold and hunger. He had routed half of Middle-earth, creating large splodges of ruin both in the east and west, and who knows what he has accomplished by this moment. – Ereigion is certainly lost to him, now, and it was not a small settlement of the Ñoldor.

A chill that has nothing to do with the weather seeps into my marrows on that train of thoughts. Are we trapped now, after so long and so hard trying to flee the carnage of our homeland? Has Sauron just been playing with us, like a cat with a mouse before it decides to kill its prey?

The person lying beneath me stirs and shifts slightly, and I freeze in surprise and terror that is not connected to Sauron's cruel actions. He murmurs something unintelligible, then shifts some more and grips me tighter with an arm. He uses the other arm to brace himself upright, and moments later I find myself sitting sprawled in his lap, still gathered in his embrace as if it were the most natural thing for him to do in Arda.

He does not look at me even once, though, and his breathing becomes slightly more ponderous when he at last – apparently – finds a more comfortable sitting position. Is he that tired? Is it because of me?

Is he the singer? But if he is the singer, then where is that unfeeling healer and the crass stranger? – Not that I want to meet them all, though. (One is enough.) Just… why is the singer always with me when I wake up?

I am too afraid – and too ashamed, somehow – to ask him directly.

A gust of breeze blows overhead, bringing the scent of oaks and pines and rich earth in it, tinged with the exhilarating fragrance of rushing water. I inhale deeply on the mixture of smells, not wanting to miss every bit of it. It promises safety and the comforts of home. It promises long years of happy living among the trees, and, even though I was born and raised in a packed city of blacksmiths and crafters, I am not exempt from the allure of the vague vision.

The man tilts my head up to face him, and smiles down to me knowingly. – He feels it too, and sees it, and wants it. – I give him a tentative smile back.

He seems to be taken aback by my reaction. But he refuses to say anything about it on my questioning stare.

Maybe wishing to avoid my gaze, he angles his eyes upwards, to the sky, to the sailing Rána. A truly genuine smile lights up his face, then, chasing all the weariness and distress from his features. A brief jealousy blooms in my heart, that he would rather give the smile to the Moon than to me, but I swiftly quash it down. It is heresy, comparing myself with the Moon. – But I do like a good attention…

I think that he has forgotten me, but I am mistaken. To my joy, he looks back down after just a moment, and stares right into my eyes. – But he is apologising, through stare alone.

But for what?

I gulp. He has never stared at me like that, and I thought he was just incapable of apologising, like my proud father. And now that he is really apologising to me, I find the act more than unnerving. I wish he kept staring at the Moon instead.

Another smile curls up his lips, but this one is devoid of warmth and mirth. I would recoil if I could; but his arms keep me in place. He rakes through my features with his eyes alone, as if savouring the sight of something he has saved from a wreckage. (Perhaps it is so, literally in either occasion.) And I feel so vulnerable, so open, because of it.

Then he opens his mouth, and whispers, "I am sorry that I hurt you. You had to eat, and neither I nor my friend had any strength left for a prolonged argument. I am sorry if what we did reminded you about which you would rather forget." It takes much from him to admit that, I can see it in his eyes – ever kept locked on my own. And I feel unworthy of such an effort, such an act of bravery.

I shake my head, tearing my eyes away from him. All that I have felt so far, all that I have done, now seem foolishly childish and nonsensical. I want to strengthen my denial with words, but what comes out of my lips is just bubbling and croaking jibberish.

His left arm leaves me and reaches behind him. It comes back bearing a flask, and he quickly unstops it. "It will soothe your throat and rejuvenate you a little," he explains in the same low tone, as the rim of the flask is brought to my lips and I catch a strong scent of sweet cordial. I do not know how alcohol can soothe my throat, but refusing him after he has been so kind – and brave, apologising – is not what I would do consciously and willingly.

I open my mouth, and he presses the rim closer before tipping it up slightly.

I can barely hold back a gasp. The liquid burns me, although not in an entirely unpleasant manner. It travels down my throat quickly, and numbs it for moments afterwards, but then it feels much better. – He did not lie when he said it would soothe my throat.

I look up at him, wanting to voice my gratitude. Yet my tongue is tied, and it is not caused by the cordial burning through it. Verbally apologising and giving thanks was not a custom in my family. And indeed it was not the custom in most parts of Ereigion.

I look down again, sighing, my cheeks heating up with frustration and self-anger. But he just reaches behind him again, calmly, and brings a leaf-wrapped packet to under my nose for inspection.

"Lembas," I tell him, mumbling. He lets out a sound of agreement, and peals open the packet. Breaking a small chunk from the topmost wafer, he pushes it slowly past my lips.

But it does not feel forceful, at all, unlike before. I do not know what is different from this treatment – something about me, him, or the both of us. I enjoy it, though, verily. He now behaves like an older sibling I never had, one that I always wished I had. I hope it stays this way for a long, long time. (Although I will not – perhaps never – dare to tell him this.)

He seems to feel similarly, growing even calmer by each bit he feeds into my mouth. – Yet he also looks to be practised in doing this, and I wonder who else received this intimate treatment aside from me. – A spark of jealousy tries to ignite my fëa, destroying the fragile peace I have just gained, but I dous it before it can do any harm. I will not ruin this moment with any recklessness in my part. It has been more than enough, and I have hurt people even as I felt hurt by them in turn.

Truth stings, and it tastes appalling, but I am distracted by the waybread and the man's regular breathing and heartbeat, and thus do not notice as much. – Who is the man, though, really? He must not only be a minstrel; and anyway, someone who can sing is not always a minstrel. Now that I have the time and energy to think about it, the matter refuses to leave my mind.

It is why I find myself in another staring contest with the man, just after the last piece of lembas from the packet has vanished into my mouth. I scrutinise him closely, and he lets me. – Beautiful complexion nearly that of a female, touched only slightly by strong lines belonging to a male along his eyes. Blue-grey orbs like a merge between Vanyarin and Ñoldorin blood. Dark silver hair common among the Sindar but not among the Ñoldor. –

He is a Sinda.

Sindar are weaker, and less sophisticated, or so Atar and Amil said oftentimes. Sindar are crude, unable to create things of great beauty. Sindar are ugly, crass and without any kind of civilisation.

But he is a Sinda.

And he is beautiful. And he looks strong, calm, and so refined, even garbed in tattered clothes like now. And he apologised to me for his rough behaviour – while Atar and Amil never did. – But we are not to speak ill of the dead, are we?

He reminds me of someone else, too, someone important along the chains of command among the Exiled Ñoldor. It has something to do with "Elrond" as well – and the mystery makes me mad with curiosity.

He smiles, then, and says, "Well met, little one. With what name do you like to be called?" – He knows about my curiosity, judging from his odd tone, yet he skirts the matter – so smoothly, like a true diplomat, like Lord Telperinquar.

I shake my head, both to the puzzle that is he and his question. I have left my old life in the ruins of Ereigion, and thus my old name. I shall have it anew, far from the taint and taunt of old memories.

"I have none," say I, in barely a breath. Then, steeling my heart for a disappointment, I continue, "Well met. Might I know yours?"

Someone snickers lowly behind us. The singer jolts, and so do I (and not only because I am sitting on his lap). The culprit of the amused, mocking chuckle then skirts around the blanket, and crouches before us.

The crass man. He is the crass man who taunted me when I awoke for the second time in the tent.

I glower at him. But he just falls into another bout of sniggering. "So now you know decorum and manners, little whelp?" says he in a whisper. My cheeks burn swiftly in an exploding rage. Before I can let out any retort, though, he resumes in a darker and more serious tone. "Hurt him some more and Gil-Galad is going to know about all that you have done to him and everyone else. Oh, and that applies to Elrond as well."

I cringe and turn away, burying my head in the singer's shoulder.

"Fimlin," a voice above my head growls warningly. I feel warmth flashing through my soul on the notion that the singer is defending me now. – But I am old enough to defend myself, and I am certainly able to do so. I must…

"I swore upon his father's body that I would protect you as well as I do him. And I swore to Lord Turgon to include his descendents in my protection."

– Whose father? Who is "he" that the man refers to? – Lord Turgon? –

"But you need not bring it this far. He does not mean ill. He is just ignorant, raised in so small and closed a society."

– Does he mean it as a backstabbing defense? So cruel! –

"And how far would you take his ignorance? How far would others bear it?"

– I weep silently, my face safely hidden in the nook of the singer's neck, unable to bear it any longer. –

"As far as it takes."

– Does he really mean it? –

Low, harsh chuckles – almost a dark purr – from the harsh man.

"I am serious, Fimlin."

"And so am I, son of Ecthelion."

– Ecthelion? –

"Fimlin!"

"He must know who you are, Erestor, who keeps him safe and well-cared so far despite his tantrums. Celebrimbor's followings may be conceited and narrow-minded, but they lived in the Havens of Sirion once and must know about other realms."

– I stifle a whimper. It hurts. It hurts so much. Please let me go…

"Enough!" –

And the singer – Erestor? – jerks my head up, away from the nook of his neck where I have been hiding my tear-streaked face, and forces me to look at the hurtful taunter before us. I struggle, and let out a soft keening sound deep in my throat, deep in my heart. The torture the Elven monster evokes in me hurts nearly as much as the slaughter of my family and home.

– "You hurt him deeply. See? A child, Fimlin. A mere child." –

The singer is breathing fast and thickly, and across from us the taunter's eyes are wide with indiscernible emotion. But I just want my sanctuary back, as fragile and short-lived as it turns to be. It hurts too much. I cannot even put voice to my tears, even though my chest heaves as if I am suffocating.

And then we are gone, the singer and I, in a flurry of action. And the taunter can only let out a soft cry of alarm – and some other emotions that I do not care discern.

A pack on his back and my trembling body pressed against his front, still wrapped in what I dub "the night cloak," the singer bounds across the camp and weaves among the trees. Later I can feel him descending a narrow, steep trail, stumbling at times but never falling or slowing down, and the sound of rushing water greets my ears. – We are going to the water, and he is wading across it, never once stumbling amidst the strong currents.

Not too far from the river, he puts me down on a bed of moss under a big oak tree, and puts his pack beside me. Afterwards he just stands there, looming over me, his face tilted up to the heavens and his body rigid like a wooden pillar.

He is clearly distraught. But I do not know how to calm one such as he. I could calm the little hurts of my little siblings, but his are too great for my meagre experience.

I can try, though, can I not?

"Erestor?" I call him, timidly. – And that does it. He drops sitting beside me, the movement sudden and jerky as if he were struck by a crumbling blow.

I sneak a hand out of the folds of the cloak, and tug at his wrist. "Rest?"

I am reduced to monosyllables, apparently, but at least he can understand me. I am ashamed of my own voice, so young and lost and hurt, yet I cannot put my thoughts to words without it. (I once try to mind-speak with Atar when he was angry, and the force that knocked me back into my own head made me fall unconscious for a full day.)

He complies, after some heavy breaths, spreading a blanket upon the moss and stretching himself out on it. Then he gathers me into his arms, letting me snuggle to him and spreading some unused portion of the cloak over himself. The tension and roiling emotions are yet there between and around us, yet the night seems to croon a lullaby in the sweetest voice I have ever heard – and I fall asleep to the singer's regular breathing and rhythmic heartbeat.


	4. Part 3

**Part 3**

When I wake up, Vása is shining down on us through the leaves and branches of the oak tree, warm and golden and flickering with the movements of the living canopy above us. I can hear commotion just above the din created by the currents of the river, at the other side of it. And I can also hear the swifter breathing of the body that I am snuggling against. – Erestor is awake. And from the sound of it, he has been awake for some time.

He does not greet me upon my awakening, though. Neither does he look at me when I, still snuggling to him, get a juvenile urge to imitate the birds singing on the branches and do just that. He follows suit, in fact, after a while.

Lying here cuddled to each other on the moss and imitating birdsong, I feel like we are brothers out in a simple picnic. It serves to give us surface peace, a respite from the problems lurking in our minds, within reach of clear recollection. I certainly do not wish to touch upon them too soon. And judging from what he is doing, he agrees with me.

We play until the dappled light falling on us is no longer golden and warm. Vása is sailing upward towards her daily throne. – And my throat is dry, and my stomach is grumbling for sustenance.

He seats himself up, then, carefully disentangling our limbs in the process. "We are safe here. Work on your muscles. I am fetching water," says he, without really looking at me. The distant façade he is putting hurts me, after our intimate closeness just moments ago. But he does not say anything more. With two water-skins fished from the top of his pack, he is gone towards the river – towards the racket made up of shouting Elven voices.

Belatedly, I get the notion that he goes there not simply to fetch water for the both of us. But I can do nothing about it, with my hröa being this weak and disused.

No, I may not make it an excuse for myself not to try my best. Atar and Amil would be so disappointed in me…

Gritting my teeth, I move my arms until my elbows are nearly perpendicular to my shoulders. I try to brace my body up on my elbows, then, but fail spectacularly. My head thumps heavily against the blanket and the mossy earth underneath it, and my vision is blinded momentarily by stabbing pinpricks of light. I groan, but thankfully no one is there to hear it.

I do not want to appear weak in front of everyone. It is not safe to appear weak before anyone, save perhaps Erestor. I do not want to appear weak, especially, before Fimlin.

But if not for him, I would never know that the Sindar – many of them, probably, if not all – regard us Ñoldor as weaker than they are; foolish, conceited and brash. These clashing opinions make me confused and lost, and I do not like the feeling.

I shall show them that I am not the average Ñoldor. I will stray from the path laid before me by my parents, if it pleases them. – I will show Erestor that I am worth his sacrifice, and that he does not have to fend for me anymore. Perhaps, then, I can gain a semblance of family again? I have ever heard about foster siblings…

No, I have fantasised too far, and tarried for too long. I must work on my muscles, simply because I must, for my own benefit.

I clench and unclench my hands, and move my fingers around one at a time. The stiff muscles protest vehemently to the treatment, but I determinately go on.

Thus, I am firstly not aware of any spectators watching my effort. Thankfully, though, it is only Erestor, garbed in his tattered clothes which are no longer filthy, grasping the water-skins in each hand. His damp hair, and damp and flushed skin, tell me that he has just taken a bath in the river. His face, when I look up at him, is impassive. He does look at me approvingly, yet the emotion stops only on that.

He is hiding something; something terrible. Was he really confronting Fimlin by the river? Dare I try to find out?

I decide I do not, half a moment later. I have not enough strength and will for the attempt. – So, instead, I turn my face away and ask about breakfast.

We fall into a light conversation about vegetable stew, then. (It is the meal he wants to cook for our breakfast, or so he says.) His replies are brusque, but not as tight or distant as before he went to the river, "fetching water."

He seems to be delighted by my many questions. His bearing slowly relaxes, as he prepares the meal on a small fire on the edge of our small camp. So, while I first did it with hesitation and not a small amount of trepidation, recalling how upset my parents were with my chatter when they were working, now I do it whole-heartedly. I have always been attracted to the lores concerning the earth and the wildlife that inhabit it. My family and friends called me odd, and they could not understand why I seemingly behaved more like a Morequendo than a Ñoldo. (And that was not a praise, at all.)

But they did not watch the small leaves of some evergreen shrubs furl into needle shapes in winter. They did not watch a rabbit burrowing a hole for its new den, or eating a leaf in its dainty way. They never stopped long enough by a tree to see a pair of squirrels playing catch with their remaining store of nuts in spring. – They were always in hurry to their workshops or forges, or some other appointments, and forsook the world we were born into. But I did not complain, most of the times, because then the wildlife would just be mine to watch and cherish.

Here, though, I have to share the fascination with Erestor. A part of me loves it, having yearned for such a person for my whole life. Yet another part of me wishes to keep the wildlife to myself, mine alone. – And the latter is swiftly crushed down by the realisation that Erestor is not a lone Morequendo in a city of Ñoldor. I suspect that Fimlin is one, and the Non-Elf certainly counts as one, and I do not know how many more they are outside of these three people I have personally met.

Erestor is certainly proficient in herb lore, as he describes to me where to find and how to pick certain herbs, and differentiate between the edible and poisonous parts or species. He tells me about some medicinal herbs and how to prepare them, and what to do with them afterwards. And not long into the conversation, I am reduced into just making sounds of surprise, appreciation or question. He outdoes me by far!

Then I taste the stew he makes, after long tormented by its delicious aroma wafting out of the pan with the vapour, and it is… exquisite. My father could not make anything this good, and my mother less.

He laughs when I close my eyes and smile in bliss after he feeds me the first spoon of it. "I take it you like it?" he asks when I open my eyes again, grinning sheepishly.

"How did you make such a good stew with such a limited range of ingredients?" I blurt. I wish to learn from him. Then I can be a good man, and maybe a good husband someday.

He must find my pleading look funny, because he falls into another bout of hearty laughter, which lasts longer than the previous one. Yet afterwards he focuses himself on feeding me, just smiling enigmatically.

He only capitulates when I frown at him. (Well, at least I do try to frown. But he tells me, laughingly, that it looks like a cute pout.) "There are certain advantages to being an only child," he says with twinkling eyes. "That is, if you are not too lazy and spoil yourself silly." There is a dark background to this statement smilingly delivered. I can feel it. I can even imagine tasting it in the air. But I dare not ask him, for fear of ruining the warm moment we have built again for ourselves.

"Well, I was not an only child," I say quietly, unable to help myself, "but now I am."

Surprisingly, contrary to the other occurrences where my recent past surfaced, he does not try to gentle the memory or soothe me by any means. He just feeds me another spoon of the stew while smiling sadly.

We are quieter, then, and he finishes his own portion of the stew after feeding me in the same silence. Awkwardness hangs between us, but – to me – at least it is not the cool distance from early this morning, or the turmoil of yesterday. He takes my bowl and spoon from my lap alongside his, afterwards, to rinse on the bank of the river. I stare worriedly at him, noting that cacophony is still going on by the far bank of the river, but he shakes his head – knowingly. "I shall not be long gone," he promises.

I do not believe him, but I cannot make him stay. The cooking and eating utensils do need washing. We need to calm ourselves down also, away from each other, sadly. There are yet too many unsolved problems between us, for us to stay with each other for long periods of time at once.

I return to working on my fingers, then my hands, and my arms. I will the muscles and joints to loosen up, grinning happily when I manage it. I have been sensing the swift return of my strength here, amidst this peaceful, pristine wilderness far from people. No refugees to remind me of the recent horrors, and no one like Fimlin to try my admittedly thin temper. I can feel the muscles aligning, and the joints rejuvenating. When Erestor returns with the wet but clean utensils we have used for breakfast, I am in the process of attempting to reach for the nearest water-skin.

I firstly think he will instantly seek to help me; but I am – yet again – mistaken. He busies himself drying the utensils and stowing them away back in his pack. But I can see that he is watching me from the corner of his eye, alert and ready.

I manage to grasp the water-skin, but fail to lift it. Before I can lament the failure, though, he encircles my hand with his own and brings the water-skin up gently from the ground. He opens the lid with the other hand, then guides my own hand to put the rim on my lips. – And all the while, I can only stare confusedly at him. Why does he do this, instead of taking the water-skin into his hand and making me drink in that way – like before?

And again, I notice how practised he is, as if he has done this for times uncounted, to too many youths like myself. I wish to know…

I drink my fill from the water-skin, letting the cold, clean water slake my thirst and also my heart's longing of it. I have only once really tasted water, and in a small quantity no less, after my flight from Ereigion; and it was not as clean, nor as crisp as this. Erestor seems to feel and do the same, afterwards, for it is a long moment before he finishes gulping the content of his own water-skin, and the previously-bulging thing is now slim once more.

Then, rather bluntly, he says, "You need a bath. I will wash you with a cloth if you cannot yet stand the cold water, but you do need a bath." And he just smiles to my offended look. – Only when he is carrying me to the riverbank, having collected several items from his pack, do I realise that he was mostly teasing me. Sadly, I cannot give it back just as good.

Thick, roiling mist covers the opposite bank of the river when we arrive. That baffles me, since it is quite late in the morning already. But Erestor does not look perturbed in the slightest, or even curious. He sets me down on a slab of stone jutting over the rushing water, and puts down the bundle of items on a nest of pebbles beside me. "The riverbed is rather shallow here," he informs me while untying the knots, his voice barely heard over the loud noises of the river. "You can test the water now if it is too cold for your current strength or not." Then, perhaps seeing an embarrassed but determined look on my face, he hastily continues, "Do not hesitate to admit it – if you cannot take it yet. You would just make trouble for the both of us if you did."

Turning away to avoid his gaze, I move my legs a little and manoeuvre them so that my feet touch the surface of the river. – I flinch. It is nearly icy! But I shall not let it weaken my resolve. I am strong enough for it. I am just not used to it yet.

However, Erestor seems to have a different idea in mind. He warns me to shut my eyes and hold my breath. Then, without any more words, my body is lifted up into lithe but strong arms, swung once, and pitched into the frigid water.

I would shriek if I did not fear of gagging and drowning. But still, without opening my mouth and choking on water, I am quite in a danger of drowning. My limbs wave uselessly around me, tangled in the night-cloak, floated away and slightly downwards by the strong currents. – I am numb, so numb. Yet the icy grip around me, strangely, prompts my muscles and joints to loosen up further, reacting to the immediate threat upon my life. – The river roars in my ears, seeming to be delighted with my predicament. Will it take me, then?

It must be just a moment, although to me it feels like hours, when the same pair of arms haul me to the surface. My head breaks through the water, but my body – shoulder-down – is kept underneath. Erestor is grinning at me, openly teasing.

I raise a hand, with visible effort, and swot weakly at his shoulder. My eyes widen with surprise on the act, not expecting myself to be able to really do it. But he just laughs, and laughs harder when I glare at him.

"Now, your bath, since you seem to be just fine in this kind of water," says he, after gulping down the last chuckles. I blush. I have briefly forgotten the real reason of his dunking me into the icy water.

And as if perceiving my thought, he quirks his eyebrows in amusement. "We can play after your bath," he says innocently. "I was once told that bringing someone's muscles back to life is best done in cold water. And besides, you do stink." From the way he says it, though, the accursed advice was spoken to him just recently, not suggesting the usual meaning of "once."

My glare intensifies. – But he is already sneaking a hand under the night-cloak and slipping it over my head. I yelp, blushing redder.

"There is nothing to be ashamed of," he tells me, in a more serious tone, when I am nearly crying from sheer terror and embarrassment. "We are both male, after all. And besides, I have been bathing you and taking care of your needs since a week ago."

After that, I relax just slightly, and choose to look pointedly down at the glinting water. He seems to take it as a permission to proceed, because then he is scrubbing at my neck and shoulders and armpits – firstly with his hands, then with coarse sand he finds from the riverbed. Meanwhile, he hums absent-mindedly, and his eyes almost never leave my face.

True to his words, he massages the muscles on my neck and shoulders, and they are no longer stiff. (However, the skin remains rather numb to the touch, being surrounded by the frigid water.) As he works steadily lower, he tells me about the things he saw and experienced while he was out picking herbs and wild vegetables for our breakfast.

He is truly a story-teller. He wraps me in his words, and I surrender quite willingly, eagerly wanting for more and more of the vivid images and experiences he describes. And when he is done with it, I realise he has just finished with my toes. (And the story, too, is actually the recounting of a simple outing.) I do not know should I feel betrayed or amused with myself.

I settle for snorting, pouting and glaring woundedly at him. And he does not deny it – my undertone that he has tricked me. He does not let me complain more, though. Seeming to ascertain that I am now in a better physical condition, he brings me swimming around our side of the river – without warning, yet again. He drags me along and against the currents with an arm around my waist, and I am left to stay afloat as best as I can using my hands and feet.

It is quite enjoyable, actually, although I will never admit it to him. As infuriating as he is, he knows how to make me happy and distracted. And I cannot stifle the smile that graces my face when we are cavorting in a nearby small rapid. He instills a feeling of safety in me, somehow, and I begin to expect it from him – crave it, in fact. Because of the constant contact between us and the play we are sharing, I also feel closer to him – against my better judgement.

I am not aware that Vása has slid low on the western horizon, as I only focus my attention on Erestor, the river and myself. I complain when Erestor says we should return to our camp. Then he points the fact at me, and I can only gape. The sky is tinged with darker colours already, and now I am also aware – at last – that my hröa has been begging for rest.

"Can we play again tomorrow?" I ask in a sudden attack of shyness, not looking at him, as he is towing me towards the pebbly bank. Erestor just hums noncommittally, so I let out a whinging noise. – But since when have I started to be this forward to him?

– And the mist on the other side of the river never disperses. Does Erestor notice it? Is it a work of the Enemy? –

He seats me on the stone slab I was seated in the morning, after covering it with a piece of dry garment which looks suspiciously like a tablecloth. He climbs up to my side, then, and I realise he is just as naked as I am. A snort answers my raised eyebrows. Only when I stare petulantly at him does he elaborate, "I also needed my bath, you know, and one cannot bathe freely with clothes on." I blush at his bluntness, but refuse to turn away when he chuckles in response to it.

He dries me with a scrap of fabric, then wraps me in the night-cloak. He dries and clothes himself only afterwards, before gathering the items he had brought back into a bundle. "We only have wine and waybread for dinner," he says apologetically meanwhile. "I did not hunt any game this morning, and I did not gather enough leaves for a vegetable stew." But still, my stomach grumbles on the dinner announcement.

He combs through the tangles on my damp hair after securing the bundle. Only then I know that someone has cut my hair much shorter than it was last. My face crunches up, upset and confused.

He sighs. "I am sorry, little one. I had to cut it when I treated your injuries. Much of the lower parts of your hair was glued to your burns."

It is the first time the matter of my recent past is brought up. I stiffen. And Erestor himself looks uncomfortable. The companionable mood we have been in thins and threatens to dissipate. I do not like it. And I would like to put the past behind me, no longer mentioned – no less discussed.

We remain in an awkward, tense silence until the camp is in sight.

Someone else is standing by the oak tree, and comes to a tension on seeing us approach. A beautiful sheathed sword is gripped firmly in his hands, as if ready to proffer to an important person in a warrior ceremony.

Fimlin.

Erestor tenses up. I, riding in his arms, cower and try to bury my face into the nook of his neck. I can feel Fimlin's stare on me, but the Elven-monster says nothing about my response to his presence.

"Are you alone in this side of the river?" Erestor asks flatly. I assume Fimlin nods, because then Erestor continues, "When did you come? And how did I not notice it? – Speak."

"Yes, Sir. – I came alone here, upon notice and permission from young Lord Elrond. I came here early in the afternoon. I crossed the river by swimming, farther from where you swam. I do not know for certain why you did not notice me, but I do have some guesses pertaining to that." Clipped, precise, formal, truthful. Distant, unfeeling, brittle. I cringe. Are all warriors like this? (I now suspect Fimlin is one, from his stance.) And why does he address Erestor like that – as if to his commander? He dared to be insolent even to Erestor, so why does he now change his mind?

I replay his words in my mind, trying to find clues about his real feelings and thoughts on the matter.

And the longer I observe it, the more I – try to – recoil into myself. He is surrendering himself for judgement from Erestor, and expects the harshest of it.

Sometimes, I heard people whisper about how the Fëanárion lords punished wrongdoers among their troops in the past. And then I would have nightmares for days, and I would not dare tell my parents, because then I would have to admit eavesdropping on forbidden matters. But now the memory comes back to haunt me, and I find myself shivering involuntarily in dread. – What will Erestor do? As much as I hate Fimlin currently, I do not wish him dead.

I can sense Erestor nodding to his report. And then he steps up and lays me on the blanket, and faces Fimlin directly. I wish he did not think to get rid of me, so I could at least attempt to do something to distract him. Now…

The two of them look at each other, separated by two arms distance. Then Fimlin steps up, half unsheathes the sword and bows at Erestor. The half-naked sword is presented to the latter, balanced on his palms, and I gaze wide-eyed at it, unable to look away. It is the blade I saw once in the tent, and it still shines coldly but brilliantly – especially now under the Sun's rays.

Erestor takes the sword, grips the hilt and unsheathes it fully. The sheath clatters dully to the ground, but neither of them heeds its fall. Their faces are grim – and Fimlin especially, tight. And then he kneels, looking at Erestor's bare feet, his braids falling away from his neck.

His neck…

The blade is tilted up, and moved down—

I shriek, and coil myself into a tight, shaking ball of flesh. I do not know how long and how much I scream, but my throat hurts from it, and I do not care about it.

But then an unfamiliar pair of arms lifts me from the blanket, and cradles me for a moment before passing me to a set of more familiar ones. I cease screaming by sheer surprise. Erestor's voice sounds in my ears, then, baffled and concerned. "What is wrong, little one?"

I want to scream "You!" but something holds my tongue back. Fear? But it does not feel like it. I am not being afraid for the moment – not for my own self, at least.

A faint "Oh" reaches my ears, then, and I perk up slightly in insane, morbid hope.

"Explain." Erestor sounds frazzled, unnerved.

And then, miraculously, Fimlin's voice answers the order. "The Fëanorians took this bit of our culture and warped it to their purposes, Sir, and this child must have only heard about the warped version, given where he was raised."

I want to retort, to defend – anyone – perhaps my lost society, perhaps the "Fëanorians" (as Fimlin so crudely put it), but have not the heart to do so. I am simply glad that I can still hear him speaking, and maybe argue with him in the future. – But now, what I really want is a good meal before a good sleep.

I am on the verge of doing the latter (skipping the first), when a hand touches the side of my jaw, then slipping lower towards my chin resting on Erestor's shoulder. My face is carefully tugged away from its usual hiding place, and I am made to stare – blearily – at Fimlin.

– Oh. It must be his hand, then. –

But he just looks at me for a long moment, saying nothing, without any rancour or scorn in his deep grey eyes – so like a Ñoldo's. And I just passively stare back, unwilling to pull my fëa from the brink of the tantalising dreamland, and not wanting to move my hröa for any reason.

He smiles, then, and I blink sluggishly. The smile is… soft, if I dare interpret it that way. But is he really capable of such a thing?

His eyes hold solemn laughter, as if he can guess at what I think about. (Or am I projecting out my thoughts again?) Then, to my utter surprise, he kisses my forehead, tenderly. A soft sigh escapes my lips as an instant response to it, and I duck back into my hiding place in embarrassment. I am such a baby!

The world soon dissolves into rays of dream, though. And Erestor keeps my nightmares away, pushing me deeper into a healing sleep.


	5. Part 4

**Part 4**

I wake up, again, to the realisation that my eyes were closed when I slept. And then I find that I am once more used like a little child's stuffed animal by Erestor.

But then remembrance hits me, and I cannot believe it. Not even when I spy someone sitting with his back to us, someone with a rather familiar frame and bearing.

The puzzlement does not dissolve moments afterwards. Erestor wakes up, leaves the makeshift bedding, and calls for the watcher to go to rest. (It is time for him to make breakfast for all of us, he says.) And Fimlin obeys the order wordlessly, almost instantly, laying himself outstretched beside me without once glancing at whom he shares the blanket with. So careless, casual.

Moments later, after a careful look over at us, Erestor leaves the campsite. The water-skins are slung across his back, a grass-woven basket is in his hands, and the ornate sword belted to his right hip.

It all still feels – looks – like a dream, and I cannot believe it. But the smell of dewy grass and early-morning earth and blooming wildflowers are in my nose, and a light autumnal breeze caresses my cheeks. They are… realer… than mere dreams can ever hope to achieve.

"Neither Erestor nor Elrond ever diagnosed you of delirium, you know?" –

I blink uncomprehendingly. Fimlin is sitting up beside a small fire that was not there, with a small kettle hung above it. And he is gazing down at me squarely, a somewhat quizzical look on his stern face that makes me want to laugh.

"He wants you to rest," I retort, when my still-bleary mind has caught up with reality. I blink again. I expected my voice to be yet rough from disuse and disrepair, but it is now as smooth as ever, although small and a little weak. And my throat no longer hurts, too.

A smirk plays on his lips, one that I remember from when he taunted me that night – which feels so long ago. If I could cringe, or recoil into myself, or back away, I would, now.

But he only says easily, without any hurtful emotions in it, "A warrior can never really go to rest in a field of battle. And what Erestor does not know, he will not be worrying about."

I stare sharply up at him. (Again, this does not seem to bother him at all.) And a pleased smile lights up his strong features. "You can be a great asset for him, if only you are more thoughtful most of the time," says he. But the statement just throws me into a deeper level of incomprehension. And worse, he refuses to elaborate the puzzle to me. (His typical smirk seems to tell me to find the answer for myself.)

I want to ask him about many things, many things about Erestor (and perhaps the elusive Elrond), now that he is more amenable towards me. Yet I cannot find the right place to begin, and I would rather skirt the questions that are ready in my mind for various reasons.

He bids me to try to sit up. I comply as best as I can, scrambling up with much effort and swaying a little drunkenly afterwards from it. (I try to ignore, as best as I can, that the night-cloak is now nearly all unwrapped from my naked body.) Then he proffers me a water-skin, and I reach out a weak, trembling hand.

He frowns. After apparently some hesitation, he removes the lid and puts the rim of the water-skin against my lips. – I hate my current weakness, which does not seem to want to go away. But all this dawdling gives me time to gather up my courage to finally ask something of him. The question is right on the tip of my tongue, followed by another, and another; but expelling it needs more than my usual boldness – or so I think.

I drink my fill, then raise a hand to indicate that I am done. When he pulls the water-skin away from me, I take a – hopefully discrete – fortifying breath,

And mumble to my lap, "The sword."

Oh. I cannot do it…

A hand, rough with calluses from handling heavy tools, materialises in my field of vision. Two fingers press under my jaw and lift my chin up. "What did you say?" Fimlin, and his mildly-quizzical look is back on his visage.

I gulp. He raises an eyebrow. "The sword," I mutter, just slightly louder.

"Which sword? Whose? And what about it?"

I guess he is just being difficult on purpose, so I glare sulkily, imploringly, at him.

He capitulates, although not fully. "Erestor's sword? The one from yesterday?"

I stiffen, wincing. – Then again, he always retaliates for his defeats just as well. (He can have made it less blunt or less obvious, can he not?)

Still, I nod, because he has his guess right on the mark.

He settles into a crouching position in front of me, still holding my chin up, and sighs with something almost like resignation. "I thought Erestor would be the one teaching you about these things," he confesses, then falls silent for a moment.

I can hear him muttering "Where to begin?" under his breath. But then he addresses me directly in a louder voice: "What do you want to know about Ringil?"

I suppose he does not mean to be forcefully blunt, or obvious, or startling – this time. But he indeed does all the said three. – Ringil? Does he mean the same famed blade that I think he means?

"Oh. So you indeed know about Lord Fingolfin's blade after all? I thought Celebrimbor would close himself and his people against the knowledge revolving around his half-cousins."

"No, he does – did – not," I mutter, glowering fiercely at him. If I had the strength, I would hit him for putting me for such a dim-witted, narrow-minded person. But he does look innocent from any ulterior motifs, and my senses usually do not lie or mislead me.

He sighs again, probably noting my rising hackles. "What do you know of Ringil, other than that it was Lord Fingolfin's once?" he asks, seeming to rue having invited me to spill out my thoughts. I shrug noncommittally. – After all, two can play the game.

Sadly, he seems to think about the same thing, because then he releases my chin and turns away, quickly busying himself with making tea from the boiling water inside the kettle. When Erestor returns, he acts as if nothing had happened. And Erestor himself is distracted by the preparation of breakfast (berries and nuts and three small conies, today). I use the time to grumble to myself, work on exercising my fingers and arms, and plot away half-heartedly on Fimlin's figurative downfall. But it does not mean that I do not pay attention to what is exchanged between the two mysterious not-strangers before me, too.

"When will they come?"

"I do not know. Elrond reckoned they should depart the current site as soon as possible."

"And what of the base?"

"No news yet."

"Shelter?"

"Makeshift. Now in the planning stage. – What do you think?"

"We need thorough mapping. Being overcautious is not a bad thing in this case."

"Should you not rather go home, though? Erin needs you."

"He can do well on his own. I am needed here."

"Roles, then?"

"Later. The foundation is built before the house, after all."

"Ehh. You seem to need to go home, anyhow."

"No, I do not think so."

Well, still, it does not mean that I can understand them. I guess they are discussing the refugees of Ereigion somewhere in their cryptic words, but I cannot be quite sure. (And being this unsure is so, so infuriating.)

We eat in a silence churning with thoughts. Erestor and Fimlin do well in reducing the piles of berries and nuts in the basket, and also their shares of the conies. I take my time and eat my fill, although my mind is not in it, using the slowly-returning strength and suppleness on my hands and fingers. – Somehow, my heart deems it important to show off to Erestor about this progress I have made, without the consent of my mind. (In fact, my mind cannot comprehend why I do that.)

Fimlin rises to his feet after downing his cupful of steaming tea, with a questioning stare to Erestor. After getting a nod from Erestor, he bows at him with a grim smile – and tweaks my nose playfully when he is half turning around – before departing. He brings nothing with him but his sword; moreover, he says nothing to either Erestor or me.

These secrets inflame me further, and I am getting uncomfortable sitting here with one of their perpetrators. The discomfort does not dissipate when Erestor, having put out the fire, tells me that it is time for me to try to test my leg muscles by walking. – "You could swim with them, yes," he resumes after putting the used utensils in the basket, "but you never walked on them."

The reasoning makes much sense, I suppose. I only do not wish to be near him, with his having been so cryptic right in front of me, as if teasing me by information only half given. Still, I capitulate when he insists. (I can do nothing to the contrary. In our brief time together, I have already realised that he is so subtle but persistent when he wants it.)

He has the basket on his left hip, and lets me lean to his right shoulder. We spent the first leg of the excruciating journey in silence, and I take the chance to look around at the surrounding scenery for the first time. (I was yet too tired and apprehensive about the impending bath to enjoy the sight yesterday.)

It looks like we are in a steep valley or a very deep gorge, with its middle part nearly bare of trees. Small hills dot the length of the valley as far as I can see, lushly wooded and populated also by fruit-bearing undergrowth. The land is yet pristine, or so it seems, and I am quite glad to see so much fresh green around. And the Sun's light make it glow pleasantly.

And that is the other strange thing about the valley. (Beside the ever-present mist on one side of the river, of course.) It is rather late in autumn, but I have not yet seen any yellow, red or brown among the leaves in the trees here. What keeps the land so green? And the grass under my bare feet is so lush and springy, too, unlike what I found around the forges, workshops and halls at home – no, in Ereigion.

And the wildlife… I have just spied a deer bounding into the nearby woods, avoiding us, while a pair of rabbits instead come out and watch us pass. Unseen squirrels chatter on the leafy branches nearby and above us, and some make bustling noises nearer to the ground. A small white fox tags after us, running close to Erestor's heels then mine, sniffing us alternatingly with great curiosity. And birds sing their various songs merrily all around, while bees and butterflies dance above some patches of flowers we pass by.

I inhale deeply, and hold the clean, fresh air as long as I can in the depths of my lungs, before exhaling it again. My back straightens up, unknowingly, after each deep breath I take. And the time we need to reach the riverbank passes as if just a moment, taking almost no toll on my recovering hröa.

It is wonderful, what nature can do to an Elf. And our Ñoldorin healers in Ereigion only prescribed ready-to-use medicine or complicated, book-based medication to overworked or distressed people… Why did they never advise people to simply go out of town for a while and enjoy the scenery? But then again, most people that I know would have rejected it at once, anyway. – And thinking about our past in the city just brings pain to my heart and spirit now, so I had better stop. The wound is yet too fresh.

I help Erestor clean and dry out the utensils as much as my current condition allows, thankful that he does not scorn my meagre contribution to the work. We do not return to our camp as soon as the task is finished, though. Erestor invites me to swim again, and I eagerly comply.

We dare play in a bigger rapid farther down the river this time, riding in its exhilarating swinging-and-bouncing motion. All the same, my body tires out before my spirit does, and I am forced to notify Erestor thus, as he has ordered beforehand. On my disgruntled look, albeit, he takes us playing among the boulders and pebbles strewn along the riverbank, instead of going up completely to the dry land.

It is when he drops the proverbial boulder over my head. – "We need to come back soon. There are grass blades to hack and roofs to plait."

"It is a female work!" I protest spontaneously. "And what are they for, anyhow?"

But he just cocks an eyebrow at me, until I begin to feel uncomfortable and jittery. "What do you think?" he retorts after a moment, perhaps pitying me. I glare sharply at him – which is returned with amusement by the infuriating nér.

"It is winter soon." He yields at last. "The wounded need roofing, just like you did, so we need to make the necessary items as soon and as fast as possible."

I turn away, disappointed. So everyone is going to move here, across the river? They will inevitably spoil the land, and I do not want it to happen. I have not also explored it to my satisfaction. Can they not make camp on the other side of the river? I reckon we are already at a safe distance from Ereigion, judging from Erestor's and Fimlin's more relaxed bearings, so we do not need to worry too much. (Is that not so?) I do not wish to share this land at the moment.

And I am forced to admit to myself that I, too, do not wish to share Erestor yet with anyone else. I was inexplicably glad when Fimlin departed for the other side of the river, because then I did not have to share Erestor's attention with him. (And it did not help that Erestor seemed to be more amenable towards him than me.) I do not know why I feel this way towards him, but right now I do not want to explore any possible answer to that. I am revelling about being a selfish child at once, after twenty years of having to be an older brother to a pair of mischievous boy and girl.

The river loses its appeal because of Erestor's unexpected – and unwanted – pronouncement. I cannot bring myself to enjoy the bubbles and frothing sprays tickling my soles and calves from amongst the rocks. But I cannot also bear the thought of returning to camp and plait grass blades like a Nando or Avar, which result then will be used by some rough usurpers of the land.

But are they usurpers, really? Am I not being a usurper too, lording over a lordless land on my own claim and no other?

I allow Erestor to dry me up and tug me back towards the camp in peace. (I would not win against his determination, anyway, if I tried to argue with him, like I have proven to myself yesterday.) It is hard, reconciling with the notion that I might have overstepped my own boundaries, making too much use of my current condition to behave like a child I always yearned to be. And at last, tired of my inability to seek and face up the truth, I simply let go of my old restraints, and nod when Erestor asks me once again if I am willing to help him plait roofing from grass blades. After all, people will call me a Nando or an Avar anyway if they know I love the living earth too much, so why not behave like one?

To my surprise and bafflement, though, he does not put me directly to the task as soon as we reach the camp. "There is a wide clearing close to this place, and the grass there is tall and dense. It will serve our need well, I reckon," Erestor explains to me as he stows away the utensils in his pack. "If you would cut the stalks and put them in the basket for me, I shall be able to manage our dinner faster." – So why did he insist on making me plait just some time ago?

Still, I am not about to complain about this unexpected fortune. Armed with a small dagger (that Erestor pulls out from one of his boots), I trail after him to our destination.

I fall into the task as soon as we reach the said clearing, having found out that Erestor is not going to be far – in case anything unfavourable happens. My stomach is growling, but the tedium of my chore soon distracts me from it. Being put to use constantly, my hand and arm muscles swiftly return to almost normal, and the other parts of my hröa follow suit as I move from the first patch of grass to another, and then another and another. I do not look back to see how much of Erestor's roofing material I have gathered, but it has long overflowed the basket and now is stacked up in piles along my random route.

And when Vása is giving out her parting colours as a farewell to the known world for the day, Erestor comes to me with a wineskin and a bowl of vegetable stew. I quickly put down the dagger and sit back on my hunches, cleaning up my hands by rubbing them against each other. The smell in the steam wafting to me from the wooden bowl is even more tantalising than a similar stew he made yesterday.

I reach out my hands before he can proffer the bowl to me, and he laughs with startled amusement. "Hungry much, little one?" he teases me, smiling. But I ignore him for the moment, busy eating the stew and drinking its soup, observing no table manners in my tempted hunger.

But afterwards, I am barely aware of anything around me. (I know that Erestor carries me back to the river and bathes me, but cannot care less for now.) And when I am laid between layers of familiar garments, deep sleep welcomes me warmly. It is as if I let go of restraints I have kept for far too long and plunge happily into the abyss.

Well, but I am not so happy anymore when I wake up. In fact, I am unpleasantly surprised, and angry, and quite annoyed.

People are swarming noisily back and forth past me, around me, and Erestor is nowhere to be seen or sensed. I am totally alone in a sea of people, and that reminds me too much of my life in Ereigion, the life that I have abandoned when I woke up in that tent the first time and heard the singer sing.

I am clothed in a short tunic and a pair of trousers that smell strongly like Erestor and travel. The night-cloak is no longer around me, but I do not really care about it. It is the only welcome change I feel this morning.

A pack is sitting beside the bedding. (Erestor's, it seems, from the look and smell of it.) I open the lid and reach inside, finding an assortment of water-skins, and wineskins, and also small sacks of berries and nuts. I do not reach deeper, because then hunger hits me. I can just pretend that today is yesterday, and I am racing playfully against Erestor in demolishing his fresh store of berries and nuts.

It helps me block out the outside world for a moment. But it also heightens the feeling evoked by his absence in the long run, so I hastily quit eating when my stomach feels full enough. – And only then I am aware of sharp, hostile and disdainful looks aimed at my back by the people around me.

I stiffen for the fraction of a moment, then fold the bedding with forced nonchalance. I have forgotten, in the short span of being in Erestor's – and Fimlin's, to an extent – constant presence, how it felt living in Ereigion before its destruction. Now that I have experienced for myself how it feels under someone's gentle watch, I long for it and shun this unwelcome scrutiny – this weak semblance of Ereigion's normalcy.

Where is Erestor? I have to escape this throng or I shall go mad. I will even welcome Fimlin's presence for now. (Admitedly, he is not much better than my former fellow citizens of Ereigion. But at least he showed me some affection once, and he was capable of more gentleness than I know these people are, when we camped together here.) I do not know how I coped up with them for so long…

I search around the base of the oak tree, making sure that Erestor has left nothing else other than the clothes I am wearing and the pack of provisions. Afterwards, still trying not to heed the people loosely surrounding me and their hawk-eyed stares, I stuff the bedding into the pack, close the lid, then put it over my shoulders. Erestor cannot avoid me forever. And in case I cannot find him by the end of this morning, I can always search for Fimlin and harass him.

The plan is thwarted somewhat, however, by the morbid-looking spectators closing in their ranks around me. "What do you want?" I rasp, hoping I do not sound too intimidated by their show of force.

"Fraternising with the Grey, now?" a stern-looking man in patched tunic snaps disapprovingly. My memory supplies his identity without my permission: Narpilindo, one of Lord Telperinquar's right-hand men.

I probably blanch, because he sneers disgustedly at me with a contemptuous, triumphant look in his eyes. Dart of Fire indeed. – And I shrink away from it, automatically.

Several men and women in the throng laugh harshly, and I am painfully reminded of the leering, crowing orcs that raped and burnt my family. – The pack on my back scrapes against the bark of the oak, and I am truly cornered now.

"No Grey to help you now?" a woman calls, then snorts in derision. I flinch. She was one of Amil's best friends.

"Ellenoros will be so disappointed. And where is she?" She advances on me. My legs tremble. She is right. Amil would be quite disappointed with me. – But Amil is dead, and I cannot tell this woman – her friend – that. Too painful…

She covers the remaining distance with a long stride, and harshly yanks my face up by her bony knuckles on my chin. My heart pounds frantically in my chest, and I am sure she can hear it, standing so close to me – too close. Our eyes meet, and she reads me like a book – with rough handling. I whimper pitifully. I was used to this, done by Atar and sometimes Amil, but I had gladly forgotten it for a new, gentler life and people. – I am foolish, and too naïve, just like many people said back then in Ereigion. I hate it. I hate myself…

"She is dead, is she not?" Her softly-spoken words tear me like the swipe of a blade. "She is dead, and it is all your fault. – And how about Ilinsor and Ellesarë, and Meneldil your father? You abandoned them all, did you not? You forsook them, just to save your own hide?"

The word "worthless" is not spoken aloud, yet it seems to brood between us, before exploding on my face. Tears stream down my cheeks, and my body is racked with uncontrollable sobs. She has just spoken aloud the accusations I have levelled at myself; but coming from another person, justified, it is many times more agonising than my own assumptions.

Snarling. Jeering. Claw-like hands reach out at me.

– Hideous faces, the parody of Elven features, blackened and ruined. Stinking, full of darkness; grabbing, tearing… Flee, flee, flee. Pursued. Raucous, excited laughter of predators in a chase for a weak prey. – "Run, Cúmenel, run!" –

I scream, scream until my lungs are airless and my throat raw. – Flee, flee, flee. – My hröa moves on its own accord. Fleeing, fleeing up the tree. Hands swipe at me, but never catch me. Up, up, up, up to a bough far from those hands…

Someone shouts under the tree, wrathful. A familiar voice… Commotion explodes like heat from a kiln when it is open. Strong, strong melodies like dousing water; another familiar voice…

And then yet another familiar voice speaks, firmness and authority in his not-entirely-Elven timbre, while the singer yet sings his wordless melodies…

A pair of hands close carefully, awkwardly, around me, and my head is lowered down onto a strong shoulder. And a voice murmurs low into my ear, "Easy there, lad. I get you now." If I were not so shaken and stricken, I would laugh with the irony of his words. I would never think of being safe in Fimlin's arms, before now. – But now I only cry harder, letting go of any restraint and compunction, fisting my hands in his tunic. And he says nothing to it, just sitting there holding me in his lap, although his shoulder is now damp with my tears.

It is now eeriely silent on the base of the tree, and I am somehow more unnerved by it than I was by the previous cacophony, – but Fimlin's arms are around me. And he is moving down now, as agile as a squirrel – or a Green.

I am passed to another person as soon as we arrive on the base of the oak tree. And like a limpet to a good rock, I swiftly attach myself to the hröa that bears the scent I have memorised. Erestor. – Home, at last. – And he is singing at me in low tones, while cradling me gently and walking towards the river.

He seats himself on a boulder on the riverbank, and Fimlin does the same beside him. My head is pealed off his shoulder, then, and he wipes the tears from my cheeks with the palm of his hand. "Hush now," he murmurs. "It is over. Nobody will be able to harm you here." A wineskin is proffered to me, and I drink from it as much as I can take it. But all the while I never release my grip on the night-cloak he is wearing, burying my curled fingers deep inside the silken folds.

He is attempting to peal them off now, gently but persistently. And then Fimlin is speaking, and I am distracted. (And Erestor brings my hands together on my lap with a triumphant little "Ah!")

"Now I really understand what I did that night. It was really horrendous… Thank you for rebuking me, Erestor, – and also waiting for the realisation to sink in before giving me more… which you did not do anyway." A grim chuckle. "And for what is worth, little lad, I am sorry for wounding you that night."

– Wounding me? –

Fimlin's hand slips under my chin and tilts my face up. His stare bores into my soul, touching my innermost spirit, and I can feel that the action makes the both of us rather miserable. – I cannot gather enough will and courage to say out loud that I forgive him, while he can barely stand to see… To see what? My inner wounds? He must have many more than I have, given the age I can see in his eyes, so why should he shrink from the injuries (at times self-afflicted, consciously or not) of a young lad like I am?

I never get the answer to that question, and neither do I have the chance to tell him he has been long forgiven. Fimlin looks away and releases my chin. Then he moves a little farther from the water and busies himself with a task I can neither guess at nor see. (Erestor is now moving a small jar of honey tantalisingly under my nose, so my attention is momentarily riveted on it.)

The world falls away from my attention when he puts a wooden spoon into my hand and the jar into the other. I can barely prevent myself from squealing. (Squealing is just for girls and pigs and dogs, not for boys…) Trying to keep up a nonchalant countenance while under the onslaught of his laughter, I dip the spoon slightly into the brownish-gold sticky liquid and lick it daintily, savouring the rich taste.

What he says afterwards is not as pleasant as the treat he has just given me, though. – "You have to stay here for a little while, at least until everyone is calmer and can think more clearly. We – Fimlin, Elrond and I – will be with you as long and as often as we can, but you should not venture too far into the valley to search for us." – His being regretful in the telling does not do much in softening the blow. And suddenly I understand why Fimlin is bustling behind us like a denning badger.

Vása's beautiful colours, presented as she sinks below the western horizon, does not bring a smile onto my face. I am unwanted. I am a trouble maker.

Worthless.

How stinging… but she was right.

Erestor stirs around me from his deep contemplation. A moment later, his voice fills the dead silence that has been stretching between the two of us; earnest, pleading even. "You are not going to stray too far, are you? It is not that we would like to bar you from roaming across the land… We will have time for it later." When I do not answer after a long, uncomfortable pause, he resumes in a somewhat pained tone, "I am sorry for leaving you there. I thought they would not… would not do something like that to you. You were, after all, their former neighbour. But they will not be able to find this place without knowing about its presence in the first place, and you are going to be safest here."

His desperate stare undoes me. I look away to the churning water and nod mutely. I caught layers of meanings and emotions underneath his words, yet found none that would suggest his getting rid of me. Still, being left alone is not a prospect I would welcome with any excitement.

But he does leave me, and Fimlin too, here on the riverbank. Fimlin has built a lean-to of leaves and branches, with moss and some more leaves as its floor. And Erestor has replenished the pack of provisions for my use, slipping the small dagger I once handled to cut the grass into a side pocket, perhaps in case I need any protection. They go back inland when Rána is climbing up the night sky, after hearing a commotion at the distance.

I stare down at the gurgling foam amongst the rocks, so contrast to the loud frothing currents farther away from the bank. It is a big question, if I can sleep in this kind of environment; but more doubtful is my ability not to feel the loneliness about me – which screams louder than the river. I was never alone, truly alone, before now. I was always with Amil or Atar when my siblings were not yet born. And I was not alone either in the tent after I was rescued, or afterwards. But now I only have the noisy river to accompany me, and perhaps some insects, and the trees growing close to the bank and surrounding the lean-to – my new dwelling.

The smell of rain in the air does not help alleviate my misery. Reluctantly, I get up from the boulder I have been sitting on and go in search of a bush to relieve myself. (Then comes a thought of who helped me relieve myself when I was not capable of doing it on my own. And I squash it down with more vigour than necessary, more peevish with everything than ever.) Afterwards, I sit hugging my legs under the lean-to, waiting for the rain to pour down, hoping the river will not then overflow and take me away. – The clouds are blotting out Rána's light now, marching gloomily across the heavens in dark, thick sheets and clumps. The wind is blowing wetly above and across the river, whistling and rumbling in sync with the noises of the water. The nocturnal insects are strangely silent…

Soon, those are the only sounds filling my ears and mind, blotting out all others. And strangely, I am not perturbed by the promise of a downpour or a flash flood, and the sheer power of the water wrapping around my fëa. Even more oddly, it reminds me of Erestor and his quiet insistence, and it is not an entirely unwelcome notion to be had.

My spirit is buoyed on a wave of pure energy, warm and glowing and so comfortable. And I know no more about the outside world.


	6. Part 5

**Part 5**

I blink, realising that my eyes were open when I slept, for the first time in days. But was it a true sleep, though, or simply a trance induced by outside forces? – Then again, what kind of outside forces?

The promised rain is drumming on the fragile-looking roof of the lean-to, yet it never gives in under the onslaught. The river is chattering louder than usual several paces away. And the rocks outside my meagre shelter join in the din happily, as the falling droplets pound them and the new, little currents hug them. Yet there is a melody in it all, somehow, underneath the apparent chaos and cacophony. There is a harmony made up of harsh beauty and raw power displayed all around me, and that both rejuvenates and scares me.

I curl tightly around myself, burying half of my face in my pillowing arms.

I have somehow, some time ago, ended stretched out on the bedding and wrapped under the night-cloak. (What does Erestor wear, then, if he left the cloak with me?) It settles me, for a moment. It is surprisingly warm, lying beneath it, and also dry. It helps me fend off the roiling mist that otherwise covers my head, caressing me as if with actual fingers.

– Well, I must stop thinking it that way, or it will frighten me too much. – But it already does… I remind myself that I am just a fourty-year-old, who moreover has never been alone on his own before. I am entitled to some mindless fear and irrationality sometimes – am I not?

My ears pick up a strain of melodies amidst the clamour; small, sweet and childlike. I grow more scared. Erestor said nobody would be able to find me here, and yet here I am hearing a child sing. Or is it a lost child from the new encampment of the refugees? But then it will be worse, since people will seek for the lost one and thus come here…

– Will there be anyone seeking for me if I am lost? –

The sound of the joyful little song becomes louder, and now I can pick words in it: praises to the hearty rain and handsome – (Handsome?) – river. It is broken or accompanied in intervals by childish laughter, innocent and totally carefree. It entices me to find out who it is.

I peek out of the hem of the night-cloak, – and freeze.

A small shadow flits on the edge of my vision, then comes quickly into it with the accompanying sound of little bare feet on wet rocks and in tiny pools. The sky, dark with clouds and rain and fog, is then cloven by an arc of light. The child squeaks, its song cut midway, just as it comes into my full view in the glimpse allowed by the lightning. And when the inevitable thunder roars, I suddenly find a wet, shivering small ball visiting my personal space. – It is my time to squeak.

And the intruding… thing… giggles nervously to my response of frightened surprise. Insolent little creature.

But still, I cannot ignore it for long. A part of me calls to tend the tiny child burrowing into my belly. And the same part also reminds me that it will be almost like regaining what I have lost.

However, my hand strays towards the child nestling in the curve of my body on instinct, before my mind can decide on any action. I uncurl myself while tugging the child towards me, peal off its sodden clothes, and bring it under the night-cloak for warmth and some semblance of dryness.

It is a male, and indeed an Elven child. I sigh. What have I gotten myself into?

My other hand, the one that is not loosely encircling the trembling body of the child, creeps outside the night-cloak towards the pack of provisions Erestor left for me. A blind groping around its outer side yields me a towel – folded small and bulging in a side pocket. I tug the item free from its compartment, and sneaking it under the night-cloak wrap it around the tiny body in my one-armed embrace. "Sssh. Here. I have no clothes small enough for you, but this will do," I murmur to him while manoeuvreing his limbs around the length of the towel. I keep murmuring to him soothingly, babbling sweet nothings to distract him from the lightning and thunder that now seem to eagerly join the choir. And at last, the task is done: The little one is now bundled in a makeshift one-piece that winds between his legs and shoulders just as well as his torso and midriff. He should be warm and relatively comfortable now. (I know, because Amil had me in similar attire once, and taught me how to do it to my little brother and sister when they were added to our family.)

I wipe most of the water from his hair with the edge of the night-cloak. It is not as easy as putting him in the towel, though. He seems to like snuggling close to me more than having his hair dry – or drier, at least. I have to coax him to move a little – ("A moment. Just a moment, little one. And then you will have me. How does that sound, eh?") – so that I can dry the locks covering the front part of his head. But afterwards, he does not take any more time in demanding my earlier promise to him. He snuggles under my armpits and latches around my torso as far as his limbs can get, not wanting to budge even a finger.

Taking care of him digs up the memories of my little siblings in their late babyhood. It does not pain me as much as I have assumed, however, with my being distracted by his antics. Every time the recollection turns to pain, I – perhaps accidentally, perhaps not – have to evade the little one's licking tongue or tugging hand on my ear or nose. And then the memories are no more smudged by the twins' last moments, and I can laugh at their innocence once again.

I laugh, and weep, and hug the strange baby boy close to my chest, finally returning his embrace. I do not know what he does to me; so natural, yet so unearthly at once. All the same, I wish to thank him, with all my being. – "…Thank you." – Just that. I cannot say more than that, to relay the gratitude I feel. But he is a child, like I am still, and a child does not need many words to say something.

And he does understand, it seems. Cooing tenderly, he wipes at my wet cheeks with his splayed fingers. – And I remember Ellesarë doing that to me, while her younger brother by three twelve-counting busied himself kissing my burnt fingers. It worked on them when they were hurt, they said, so it must work on me too. – And it did work, soothing the sting of Atar's harsh rebuke delivered to me before his apprentices, balming me when Amil just said I was too careless to be a proper blacksmith.

We cuddle to each other for a long moment afterwards, just lying under the night-cloak doing and saying nothing, and my mind is truly at rest for the first time ever. No urge to do better for myself or to show off. No desire to learn this or that, save to finally know what true peace feels like. And Sauron can no longer get at me through the memories of my family's last moments. – Because he indeed does it, now I realise, enhancing our trauma manifolds while we yet cannot accept that he has defeated us. He uses our Ñoldorin pride and vanity to orchestrate our downfall, just like his old master did in the Land of the Powers. (But have other people realised that?)

And then, in a truly childish fashion, the little one suddenly breaks into a nonsensical song composed of cooing and humming, while his hands fiddle with the lace on the top front of my tunic. Then one end of the lace vanishes into his mouth, followed by the other moments later. "No, no," I murmur, a bit startled to find that the tie is undone. I let my fingers ghost down his legs and then the soles of his feet, and he shrieks in surprised delight, kicking my belly. I groan. "Little one…"

The deep, peaceful moment is broken quite in an anticlimactic way, and I can only smile wryly at it. Nobody will believe me, anyhow, if I tell them that a young child – only slightly older than a toddler, I reckon – was the one bringing about that moment. I will have to say no, if they ask about the child's specialty or visible talent, and that will not endear this notion to them any. After all, it is a norm that nobody believes the word and wisdom of an ordinary baby. – A baby who is now giggling and yelping madly, wiggling and flailing his limbs frantically, as my fingers attack his ticklish spots.

"Yield, now?" I smirk.

"Ai!" he squeaks. "Yes! – Hahahahahahaha… Stop! Aaaahh…"

The night-cloak is tangled around us now, wrapping us tightly. It is somewhat a chore for me to release the both of us from it, especially with the little one wriggling around and whinging in his unexpected confinement. "Lie still for a little while, would you? It was your fault, anyway. Laces are not there to be suckled at."

He does lie still, for a moment. But then he pipes up, "Then what are they for?"

I pinch the bridge of his nose – in a lucky shot in the nearly total darkness. "What was this one holding, the one you put into your mouth?" He squeals in protest and swipes at my hand, trying to pry it loose from his nose. He does not answer, though, when I finally release it, only giggling – hard.

Well, at least he is lying still now.

I disentangle him from the night-cloak (and a bit of the bedding) and rearrange everything back to what it was. "Now," I say in my sternest tone while giving the little one a disgruntled glare, "no suckling at any parts of my clothing again, all right?"

He utters a sound caught between "Oh!" and "Ah!" And my mind, through two decades of experience dealing with mischievous little siblings who preferred gestures to words, interprets it as, "No, I do not like it at all. But I shall obey you, just because you are mean to me in your punishment."

I can only sigh in defeat to that. I could never win against the whims of my baby brother and sister, so I do not put too much hope this time either. Grimacing with slight disgust, I tie back the lace on my tunic and reposition the little boy in my arms, while checking if his makeshift clothing has been undone in our playful scuffle.

"What is your name?" I ask when the both of us have truly settled down again. I just realised I still do not know his name. (And what name will I give him if… or when… he asks for mine?)

"Lómeseldo," peeps the little boy from somewhere down on my right side. "But everybody calls me Lómiseil." – He is playing with the loose threads on the bottom hem of the tunic now. I wonder if Erestor will be upset on finding out that his tunic is in shreds come morning…

"Not Lómion?" I ask him, phrasing the baffled inquiry in a teasing tone. (He only lets out a protesting sound at that.) What an odd name, I say to myself, puzzling on a possible intended meaning originally bestowed by his parents.

And thinking about his parents makes me realise that no one has come even near here to search for this little one. Odd. – Unless, nobody is aware that he is missing? Because neither storm nor flood should hinder a Firstborn from seeking for his or her child with utmost diligence. It just seems… wrong.

"Where are your parents, little one?" I ask again, purposefully skipping my turn to introduce myself.

The tiny but agile hands stop abruptly from ruining the lower part of my tunic. Guilt and concern gnaw at my heart. "What is wrong, little one?" He does behave rather sweetly for his age thus far, despite everything, and I would love to repay the aid he has lent me, even if he is not aware of giving it in the first place.

Yet he says nothing for a long, uncomfortable moment, only creeping upwards almost in a timid manner to my chest and settling there like a second blanket. "Little one?" I murmur, growing much more concerned by each counting. Instinctively, I pat his back softly and stroke his head, attempting to alleviate whatever burdens his young soul. He looks – feels – so vulnerable now, and I only realise that he has been behaving more confidently and maturely than most every children his age I have ever known or encountered. (Who are, admittedly, quite few in number.) I hate to have shattered his cheer and composure.

But I do have to know who is responsible for the well-being of this precious one.

"Are your parents in the new encampment?"

And now I feel like a monster, trying to pry the information out of his clearly-reluctant lips. But I have to do that…

He does not quite weep. Perhaps not yet. – "Far, far away." – So softly-spoken, I barely hear it over the rain's drumming and the river's rumbling. And so old and weary… My hair rises on its end. Such a voice does not belong to a very young child. But there is no evidence to show that he is not like what he appears to be, since to all my senses he is as pure and innocent as only babies can be.

I settle his limp body – so small, so very small – further up, on my shoulder, and put a tender kiss on his temple. Dare I see into his eyes?

He seems to decide it for myself, as he creeps a little more upwards and kiss my cheek. Our eyes, just a finger apart, meet, locked inside each other's gaze.

So old… So young…

Glowing, like Atar's, like Amil's. But it is not the reflection of flame like the true Exiled Ñoldor contain in their eyes; rather, it is the flame itself, lit brightly from within. – Like an Ainu.

"Far away," he murmurs, almost a mewl, and I melt down. Whoever he is, he does not mean ill to me, and he needs comforting – like I did.

I kiss his forehead, his nose, his lips, his cheeks – a small gesture, a small comfort, a small gift. Crooning sweet nothings into his ears, I tuck him more firmly in my embrace and cradle him.

He sags further in my arms. His evened-out breaths tell me he is asleep. And soon, I follow after him into dreams.

I am not surprised when, on the first song of birds, I awaken and find my arms empty. It all feels like a dream, a very surreal dream. There is nothing to convince me that it is not. Even the storm has stopped raging some time when I was asleep, and the river has returned to its usual volume of chatter. Only the wet rocks and the newly-formed small pools among them tell me that rain indeed came down hard yesterday night. But nothing else.

A sense of loss grows inside me; a gentle longing, a gentle ache. The memory of the little boy sustains and teases me in my renewed loneliness, vivid yet dreamlike. I cannot shake it off, and neither do I want to do it, if I am honest to myself.

I sit up carefully, reluctantly, and set the night-cloak aside. Vása's light has not yet reached the part of the heavens above me. (Then again, my lean-to faces west.) The world looks mysterious and somewhat dreary under the grey light of the predawn, and the ever-present mist on the other side of the river only makes it look gloomier. I despise this gap between the sailing of the two vessels of light. And now I have nothing to distract me from feeling how the world seems to hold its breath, how there seems to be a thick silence blanketing the environment even though it does present various noises to the ears.

The edge of the night-cloak is soon tangled between my fingers, a sure sign of my agitation. (If Amil were here, she would have slapped my hand.) And then the bedding suffers from the same fate.

And there is something under the bedding… I did not notice it before.

I turn the bedding over, my eyes wide with hope and a spark of excitement. – There it is, a small clump of clothing just big enough for a very young child. And when I search in the side pocket of the pack, I find it empty of the towel previously stuffed there.

It was not a dream at all.

But will the little boy come back again to accompany me? Where is he now? Wandering off somewhere else? It is quite dangerous for little ones to venture out into the wilderness without any adult to guide and guard him or her…

Slowly, almost reverently, I pick the tiny garments up from underneath the bedding and spread them up over the night-cloak. They are made of dark wool, knitted rather coarsely but lovingly. But truly, it is too hard to correctly judge the right colour of the worn tunic and breeches, seeing that they are yet damp from last night's soaking. I wonder if the little boy misses his clothes and will come back for them…

It is an odd notion, I tell myself, and I will get nothing from it. If he does come back, the boy will certainly tow his guardians behind him (his careless guardians, I remind myself) and my life will not turn any happier by it. Parents and older relatives can be too fussy when it comes to the handling of their children or little charges, I have found myself many times during my early childhood. (There was a reason why our neighbours and family friends were rather reluctant to babysit me, although they never let it be known by any means by Atar or – Eru forbid it – Amil.)

But… the little boy does not have any family nearby, does he?

I hang the damp garments over a leafy bush behind the lean-to, hoping they will still dry in spite of that concealed place, and hoping – above all – that Erestor will not find it. I do not want to share the little one with anyone else. For now, I tell myself, for now. – But "now" is a long time…

– "Cúmenel–! Pray tell, is this whispering true, that you refused to share with your siblings? You are no longer our only child, and well you should have known that by now." Amil, snapping at me during one of my tantrums some time after she and Atar begetted Ellesarë and Ilinsor. –

My hands jerk in surprise. The recollection has caught me off guard. I stumble back, – right as Erestor arrives at the lean-to, with the non-Elf trailing behind him.

"Little one?" he asks me, puzzled and a little concerned. "Is something the matter? You look so pale. Did anything happen last night that has upset you?"

I shake my head, perhaps a bit too vigorously, but he seems to only pay attention to what I display on my countenance. And he seems to be such an expert at that, making it quite a hard chore to hide everything that has happened overnight. He has struck too close to the truth, and a little more probing will reveal it in its entirety to him.

A moment later, though, opportunity presents itself through the non-Elf. (I would rather discard him from any thought or consideration in other times, but he will do for now, unfortunately.) He taps Erestor's right shoulder with his forefinger, murmuring something in an odd blend of Quenya and Sindarin. I frown. He has even mangled the languages!

And then, to my utmost relief, Erestor turns around and holds a small conversation with the non-Elf… in the same language. My frown deepens. Why does he follow the non-Elf, mangling those languages we have carefully built in yéni?

Erestor turns back to me, then, and I am caught frowning at him and the non-Elf. His mild stare turns as hard as the opal bracelet he wears on his left forearm. I stumble back towards the undergrowth behind the lean-to in a sudden surge of panic and fear. What have I done wrong? Is he rebuking my frowning at him? Because I know for certain that he is reprimanding me, very sternly. Surely it is not about my frowning on the non-Elf, though? My parents and everyone else that I have known in my life always said that Sindar, Nandor and Avari are beneath us, like the Teleri in Valinórë and their counterparts here in Endórë. But the Atani, the Sickly Ones they said, are totally uncouth and barbaric.

The non-Elf taps Erestor's shoulder again, but he does not budge now. Not relenting himself, the non-Elf murmurs urgently in that butchered tongue, pleading, while glancing at me at times. Is the… being… pleading for me? It is quite a weird notion to have, and an uncomfortable one at that too.

But odder are his eyes… They reveal an even blend of Elven and Mannish heritages, yet there is something other lurking in their depths. Something that reminds me of the little boy from last night. Something other-worldly.

– "Little one, do you even hear me?"

I flinch. My displeasure turns to horror. I have been staring into the non-Elf's eyes for real, not the memory of them, and I did not realise it, too caught up in my analysis of his true identity. I turn my gaze and attention to Erestor, then, hastily. "I apologise," I mumble, staring at his cocked eyebrows.

The non-Elf speaks rapidly to Erestor, meanwhile, as if he has made a great breakthrough in understanding or a startling scientific discovery. The look of disapproval and displeasure stays on Erestor's visage in the end of his excited tirade, but it has softened a little. He bids me to come into the lean-to with a hand gesture, while nodding at the non-Elf as if agreeing – no, it must be just "approving" – his theory.

And then, when I am seated just inside the shelter, he crouches down to my level and holds my chin with two fingers. "What do you have against Elrond, little one?" he asks smoothly, like steel wrapped in velvet. His eyes bore into mine in almost a merciless intensity, and I nearly give in to my primal urge to whimper. I never even thought to find this harder, sterner side of Erestor.

– Elrond? Who? Where?

I stare dumbly at the mysterious Sinda before me. He cannot mean "Elrond" as the non-Elf, can he? Surely such an abomination – a mixbreed which should not occur – is not high in the ranking of the High King's court? I heard whispers that Gil-Galad himself is not of pure Ñoldorin blood despite his high and noble lineage, but they remain rumours until now, and so there should not be any doubt about the matter. But even if the rumours are true, he should not—

"Is this what has been cultivated among Celebrimbor's followings, even to the young ones? Perhaps even from the young ones…"

"Erestor…" It is truly a plea now, coming unashamedly from the non-Elf's lips. But for what purpose? – My mind is jumbled with various thoughts and emotions now, and I can no longer think straight. Have I really failed Erestor, disappointed him? It is somehow quite a distasteful notion to my mind and heart, souring even my mouth. I was never prepared for this, never thought I would feel deeply for the Sinda. (He has been taking care of me, yes, according to Fimlin, but he is nonetheless a Sinda, and he also left me yesterday night for other people.)

I watch apprehensively, fearfully, as he snags the night-cloak from behind me with a hand, then carefully fold it. He shows me the folded material, then, with an unreadable countenance.

The night-cloak has never presented so much beauty – untouchable beauty – before this. It gleams faintly, like the shifting light in dark waters, but also as smooth as a dark silk. I am captivated by it for a long moment, and I do not dare look into Erestor's eyes for now anyway.

Still, he forces me – again – to do so. And I can no more shirk from his words than I can from his firm support on my chin.

"You saw it as only a piece of garment to wrap your body and act as your blanket, then?" Oddly, there is a trace of humour in his voice – barely a murmur over the din of the river.

But then it vanishes again, in his next words. "It belonged to a woman of my Kindred once, and her descendent is now standing behind me, staring at the river." – Elrond?

"It is surprising that you quickly identified the bracelet and latched on to it, while you did not do the same to this piece. But perhaps it was indeed intended that way by the weaver, as the bulk of her power did lie in subtlety, rather than outright strength like her mother." – Does he really say what I think he says? Whose cloak was it, before it came into his possession?

I dare not ask, and he does not tell me either. He stows the cloak into a satchel at his side, to my utter disappointment, and resumes his steady, indifferent tone. "What makes you think that we, whom you call Moriquendi, are lower than you are? What makes you think that Men are low beings, creatures of the Enemy even, when Luthien did anything to be with her spouse Beren – a Secondborn? And who do you think Dior was, if not a mixbreed? Luthien was in fact a half-breed herself."

I have never thought it that way. The truth was never presented at me, and now I feel inexplicably inadequate, shameful, low. I hate it.

And how many things do I hate thus far? How many things have I been distancing myself from or ignoring?

Too many.

I cannot shirk away from the truth… and I hate it.

And Erestor tightens his hold on my chin briefly, demanding my attention. I give it to him nearly out of instinct. And then I have to do a triple take of his look, because it refuses to lodge in my mind – the emotions that it communicates.

Pain. Resignation. Broken yearning. – So different from his earlier impassivity. And it hurts, hurts so much. I have forgotten how hurtful it can be to my soul. It is as if ages had passed since last I instigated that look on his face, and I have gladly forgotten it, and now I despise the return of the remembrance.

"I dearly hoped that you could truly be my charge, be under my protection," he whispers. The admission sounds just as hard to come as my effort to keep staring into his eyes, into his soul. My heart squeezes. Is he going to discard me now, then? Find me too disdainful of his own heritage and that of the people around him, too hurtful?

"I cannot take you in, while you hold my family and other charges in low regard. I can bare you spitting at me, but not at whom I adore and respect as an older sister, or indeed other people related to me in one way or another." A question blares just underneath the soft-spoken words, one that I feel very important, crucial – horrifying.

It dawns on me, really dawns on me, when he continues. "Should I go, then? I shall not ask you to do anything you do not wish to do in the depths of your spirit. And I know that the root of this matter is not newly planted just this moment."

He is speaking of my parents, of the ideals they drilled in me and my siblings. He is saying that he does not wish to taint the memory of my parents with his views, of probably the general view held here outside the lost Eregion. But it is too late, really. It has already been too late for him to think about that, to say that, now. He – and everything else – has already done it long before this, and I am powerless to stop it, to turn away from it. And still, I cannot fault him. Truth is bitter, and often not palatable, and well I know that recently.

But all the same, I feel an inexplicable anger towards him that he has cornered me into this situation, this moment, this vital decision, without any preparation. And I return his pain with just as much pain, and loneliness, and helplessness. – Let him think. Let him judge. Let him say…

"Should I go now?"

Should he? Shall I let him go from my life, as he implies? Or shall I cling to him like a baby to his mother, never to let go again? I have my pride, the indomitable Ñoldorin pride according to my family and neighbours and an insufferable one to Fimlin. Yet I also have my sorrow, and loneliness, and fear. I have my longing as well; too similar to his, maybe, to be just a coincidence. Which one should I choose? Which one will lead me into ruin, and which will lead me to peace?

I shall choose peace, as fragile as it may be.

My hröa trembles, and my fëa screams for help. But no help is forthcoming. This is my choice, and my choice alone. Alone…

I close my eyes, lurch to my knees and fling my hands before me, stretching, reaching. Another lurch nearly at the same time, forwards, and another pair of hands grasp mine in an iron grip.

Tears pour down my cheeks unchecked. My body cannot stop shaking, convulsing. I cannot bear it, the realisation that I have inadvertently chosen. But which would I choose, really, if I were less hasty, less wild? Would it not still be this, the easiest yet the hardest choice between the two? I am confused, and disorientated, – and so, so tired.

My grip on reality slackens, and my mind blanks. The disorientation remains, however, distorting all my senses and rendering them numb to both dreams and dreamlike consciousness. I do not know how long I stay that way, and partially I do not care about it. The only thing I care about when I at last resurface fully to reality is that Erestor is once more lying beside me, and the non-Elf – Elrond? – is nowhere in sight or sense. – And I catch a scent I never caught before, during my time sheltering in this place…


	7. Part 6

**Part 6**

When Erestor wakes up, I am already seated by a patch of flowers I have never seen nor scented before. He apparently catches the same soft, subtle fragrance, for he swiftly removes himself to my side and peers at the tiny white petals strewn nearby. And they are beautiful indeed in their fragile seeming, swaying gently in the nearly constant breeze like a patch of solidified mist curling around just one place.

They remind me of the little boy from yesterday night. – And it is approaching night again now…

"Niphrodel," Erestor whispers, accidentally close to my right ear. (It twitches, surprised by the proximity.)

But I am more interested in what he says. "Is it the name of the flower? I have never seen nor heard about it."

He turns to me, reluctantly, a melancholy look on his face. "You would not have, I suppose," he murmurs thoughtfully. "Niphrodel the silver-mist and elanor the golden-star did not live in Eregion, and neither were they brought there to be planted and tended. I brought them from my travels to… Lindon… and planted them there. But I do not know how this particular patch came to be here, while it was not there even this morning."

Why the hesitation on mentioning the capital city? Does he harbour bad memories on Lindon? Or perhaps instead a deep, unfulfilled yearning? It could only be secrets he has to keep, too, come to think of it again.

Soon, however, I am drawn again towards the flowers, and the entrancing scent of their fragile-looking blossoms. Swaying there peacefully, undisturbed, they make me long for Lómiseil all the more.

I only do not realise, at first, that Erestor may be experiencing a similar longing towards someone else. I am startled out of my waking reverie when I turn to him, wanting to ask if we can have a meal soon. He is staring both intently and unseeingly at the flowers, with vivid particularity that I am sure I did not possess when I was doing a similar motion. (How can he do that?) Who is he remembering?

And then a tear rolls down his left eye, and my heart squeezes. But of course, my mind chides me; he is far older than I am. He must have experienced more losses – probably more horrible also – than I have. I can still remember those blue-grey eyes burdened by memories turning their gaze at me, into my very spirit…

Absently, my left hand reaches up and brushes the teardrop away. – And he jerks to reality, regrettably.

"I am sorry," he whispers, touching my dry cheek in turn. "You must be hungry. Let us eat. Elrond left us some delectable berries he found in his search of medicinal herbs." And then the moment returns to almost normal between us, with the same abruptness that nonetheless fails to startle me – somehow. He quizzes me on edible berries and medicinal herbs as he prepares a fruit stew. (I have never known that fruits can be stewed.) I have to dig up my recent memories for the answers; and so occupied I am with the internal search, I do not track the passing time.

All that I know is that the stew is ready, and the unique, fruity smell wafts tantalisingly into my nostrils. I do not tarry in downing the concoction, although my nose and mouth wonder at its oddness for a moment. There are strawberries in it, and raspberries, and thimbleberries, and I can even taste apples and another kind of fruit which I have never tasted before. I suspect, too, that he has added a bit of the sweet cordial he gave me once into the mixture.

He is checking the lean-to and its surroundings as I eat, commenting here and there about the structure or supports, or – to my astonishment – the view. The action and the words that accompany it make me ask how he can know so much and in so diverse a matter. – He only laughs and tells me he has travelled far and wide. And it does not really answer the question… I suppose he knows, because he comes to me, then, and kissing the top of my unkempt head says that the tale is for another time.

"I have to go now," says he. "Elrond cannot manage the refugees alone. I shall be back here in the morrow, if naught else hinders me."

The reluctant tone in his voice is more prevalent now than his last departure. Or perhaps I just notice it more keenly now. – Or a mixture of the two.

And he does not include me in "the refugees," somehow. Does it mean I have truly become his charge and he my guardian? I do not dare ask, or wonder to myself, yet nonetheless I stare longingly at his back as he goes away into the deepening dusk. He conceals many secrets, too many secrets maybe, and I am both frustrated and curious about it. He is both so open and so close when regarding me, and that still baffles me greatly. I wonder if, or when, we are not going to be as awkward as this.

I seat myself on the jutting slab I have so often occupied before, in Erestor's and my excursions to the river. The currents of white water roar and rush under my feet, licking my soles every so often. The other bank of the river tempts me now, as I empty my mind and heart of any thoughts and emotions, but it is not yet strong enough to drag me into motion. I am yet content just sitting on the boulder doing nothing.

That is, until I feel a small splayed hand resting on my left thigh, as I am combing through my unbound hair absently with my fingers. I start violently, nearly falling to the river below. And a young voice, not yet losing its babyish quality, giggles guiltily.

I look down, intending to glower at the intruder. But I end up just staring at him, captivated by his small form languidly stretching at my side, leaning bonelessly against the slab of stone I am sitting on. He is looking at me happily, expectantly, as if waiting for a treat which he knows I am going to give him. His dark eyes, gleaming a silvery sheen under the burgeoning starlight, dance with bubbling mirth. And for a while, I can forget how those eyes also shine with the accumulated thoughts and emotions of ages uncounted, or how his whole form glows more brightly than a Firstborn ever does.

But I have no treat for him…

Scooping the tiny body carefully into my lap, I think furiously for something we can do together, which might be enjoyable for him. – The boy is here! And we have tonight for ourselves, like yesterday.

Yesterday… But the little one is still wearing the makeshift one-piece I made for him from the thin towel I found in Erestor's pack. It is no longer off-white in colour, but many shades of yellow and brown and even green and red. Noticing it at last, I laugh; baffled, incredulous, curious, but above all, tickled.

The little boy coos questioningly, looking up from – suckling at my tunic lace. (The little menace…)

"You need a change, first," I grumble. Then I add with a sterner note, "What did I say about suckling at my clothes? That extends to shredding them too." Because I have just caught his tiny fingers pulling at the bottom hem of my tunic – again.

He whinges. I raise an eyebrow. "I wanted to explore the riverbank, you know," I hint. The thought has just come to my mind unbidden.

In the fraction of a moment, he has already latched around my neck and torso, uttering a protesting "Aaaahh."

The pain of my recent losses returns, but dulled and distant. I miss my little siblings very much, something that never crossed my mind when they were alive and nagging and teasing me, but there it is now. If only I could have… No-no. I can never have him.

And as if perceiving my thought (while I am sure I am not projecting it out this time), the little boy stiffens briefly in my arms. I want to comfort him, to say that I know I can never have him for some reason, but I cannot do it. It would pose awkward questions, if I did it.

Wishing to escape any more awkwardness and reducing the mental distance between us, I rise to my feet with him snuggling in my embrace, walking back towards the lean-to. "You need your bath," say I, "and I need it too. Here, I have saved you your clothes from yesterday. You can change into them later."

But he has returned to putting my tunic lace in his mouth…

My first thought is, `I should change into a laceless tunic," followed by, `Where should I find it?` But then an entirely new thought slips into my awareness: `Has Erestor found out about the miniscule garments I hung behind the lean-to in his inspection?`

I do not have to worry, it seems, for now, as I find the clothes hanging spread where I left them. Picking them up carefully with a hand, I shift Lómiseil into just one arm, then go back to the front of the lean-to. I drop the garments over the bedding, then divest the little boy of his dirty one-piece towel. I drop the towel on the slab I was sitting on, followed by my tunic, and then my trousers. The wiggling bundle of energy in my one-armed embrace makes divesting myself of my clothing somewhat a chore, but I manage it in the end without ever letting go of him. (Who knows what he would do if I let him roam free, with that much energy and excitement pooling in him.)

Then, imitating Erestor in my first introduction to the river, I swing the little boy once before tossing him into the water. I follow him directly, and catch his bobbing form before he can float far. He is giggling madly, splashing me and squeaking with overflowing mirth, and I have not realised then how I have missed that unique sound produced only by carefree little children.

We splash around in the river merrily, forgetting the time or who might be watching or listening. The mist gathers around us, but I do not pay attention to it. The flow of the currents and their patterns tell me enough about where I am, the depth of the riverbed, and how close I am to the riverbank. It is almost of an instinctive nature, given how many times I swam in Sirannon, which ran along the edge of our city, separating it from the Dwarves' mines. It was not as wide as this, nor as deep, but it was certainly just as swift and noisy. And I brought my siblings sometimes, as a treat for them if they behaved well, to swim there. (Of course, all I did without my parents' knowing, no less consent. They feared I would drown, and they viewed swimming as a Telerin pastime anyhow.)

And now I am bringing yet another child playing in the river… Perhaps I am indeed not destined as a Ñoldo? It is not quite a pleasant notion to mull over. I have been uprooted from the place of my birth and upbringing, and I do not wish to be also uprooted from the heritage I was born into. Nevertheless, the thought refuses to leave, only receding to the back of my mind.

"Hold your breath, little one," I say on a whim. For added measure, I pinch his miniscule nose and secure his mouth shut with my fingers. Tightening my grip around him, I plunge under the frothing surface, away from the caressing mist, into the heart of the roaring currents. I paddle against them, weaving between currents, upwards, always upwards. And then, when a small fist slams into my hand, I quickly struggle back to the surface. I have forgotten how young the child I am holding, oddly, and now I feel terribly guilty about it.

I open my mouth, about to make a profuse, sincere apology, but the sight caught by my eyes stops the words from tumbling out of my lips. Lómiseil is practically glowing now, truly lit from within, and on his face I see the most poignant mixture of joy and sorrow I have ever witnessed. But he does not cry, and he does not look at me even when he is staring at my face. I can see his tiny rosebud lips move, but no sound comes out of his mouth. The motion resembles a word I know so well, though: "Ammë."

It is one of the most unnerving moments in my life. And worse, I cannot disentangle myself from it.

And then several people emerge out of the mist around us, surrounding us. Panicked, I clutch the little boy close to my chest, fending him with my arms around his strangely-rigid form. It feels too much like Eregion all over again…

"You are safe, child. Nobody here means you harm." A man with beautiful complexion and even more beautiful voice… like the traitor, the fake Giver. – Yet like the Song of the waters also, somehow, like one I know so well aside from the wildlife….

"It is approaching dawn," another speaks, then, another man, but with an opaque look about him, like the mist—

Like the mist.

They are Maiar.

"Just like the one in your arms," a woman chimes in a soft voice. – Tinkling brooks. Gurgling creeks.

I wish to deny it, deny her, but I cannot. She is right. But I do not want her to be right. Lómiseil is just another child, another lost child in this cruel world.

– "He is always a child since his beginning." She smiles at me gently, sadly. "He is going to be a child until the end of this world, and more." There is another message underlain in her tone of voice, of accepting, of parting, and I would really like to ignore it.

"He is alone, just like me," I hiss out, at last. She nods. Now I can see that the other Maiar are clustered behind her, and I have been somehow cornered to the riverbank. This trick does not endear them to me any, and I wish to lash out at them.

A pair of miniscule arms tighten around my neck, shaking ever so slightly, and I become aware of hot dampness on my shoulder. My heart lurches and squeezes. Lómiseil. I have forgotten about him, again, although he never leaves the circle of my arms.

"I am sorry," I murmur into his ears. Perhaps I am just too selfish, wanting his company for myself… But I do wish for his company, and he himself has sought mine twice in two adjoining nights.

"He has chosen you." The woman's soft, lilting voice caresses my eardrums. "You are not his guardian, however, in his eyes; only a friend. It can be just as precious as guardianship, still, as he does not choose his friends lightly. He has been wounded and neglected for too much and too long over the ages."

Over the ages…

The truth has never hit me so hard nor so forceful before. "Over the ages," I sigh, repeating the three words as if it were a horrible curse. If I knew…

But would I not just do the same, thus resulting in the same thing? I cannot change myself in two days – or one – and I feel I have already changed too much, even, in such a short time. And still, Lómiseil – the little boy – does not deserve to be second in my affection. I cannot give what he deserves, and I am not mature enough for taking care of him.

I am a failure.

The words spat out by my former neighbours and family friends and acquaintances return to the fore of my mind. I am unworthy. I am a failure.

A tiny hand alights on my right cheek, splayed like a little star. "You are not," a voice close to my own throat peeps. I look down, and meet a pair of confused dark eyes the colour of starlit twilight. "I love you," he says with confidence and conviction, so young yet so old… "Ammë would like you, if she were here. But she said she would be watching me till I join her, so perhaps she does like you."

Youthful reasoning. Youthful trust. When have I lost it? (When Atar swotted my bottom sharply for the first time, for saying that he and Amil were more worthy than the Silmarili – just jewels – to me? When Amil broke my first ever carving of Lord Aulë, saying that His Lordship is never clothed in the guise of a Dwarf? Or some other time, some other moment?) And he never breaks it for the cruel, merciless reality around him. How fortunate he is…

I kiss his brow tenderly, smoothing away the faint crinkles there formed by his frown. "I love you too," I whisper, and a load is lifted up from my spirit. It is as if I am freeing him, and in the doing I have freed myself. Free to love, unafraid.

I climb up a nearby boulder and perch him on my knees facing me. "Back?" I ask, and he nods. Children do not need many words.

"Up?" And I nod, rewarded by a beaming smile. He has put the sorrow behind him, for now, forgetting it for a time. Children do not need many words, indeed.

I perch him on my shoulders and grab hold on his swinging legs. Then, laughing and squealing with mirth, we take off along the water-licked jagged rows of boulders and stones and pebbles to the camp – my camp.

Children need real action. And we children love this moment.


	8. Chapter 7

**Part 7**

The timing was impeccable. Erestor arrived at the lean-to when Lómiseil had just been gone, taken alongside the… other… Maiar. (It is still so hard to connect his image with the Holy Ones, even after months of reconcilliation.) But the lean-to is now no longer simply a meagre shelter for several nights. It has morphed into my more-or-less permanent living place, and also a hidden outlook post for the new settlement's squad of guards (which unfortunately includes Fimlin in it).

The timing was impeccable for Lómiseil, perhaps, but not for me. Even now, months later, I wonder why I did not beg to go where he went, or fled somewhere else. Erestor came, indeed, and took me back to the main encampment when dawn lit the sky in soft greys and blues. He said I should reconcile with the former people of Ereigion, even if I did not wish to live among them anymore. And I, perhaps naively, agreed, with a spark of hope to go alongside it too.

They were suspicious – my former neighbours, my family's former friends, even my former playmates. They dutifully asked for my forgiveness. (And even then I noticed how it was such a strain, such a chore, to them: apologising, and to a fourty-year-old no less.) And I gave it back just as hollowly. I did not know what had made them act so. [Neither do I.] It is one of Erestor's most guarded secrets, making me suspect the involvement of dirty works in coercing my former people to behave so.

But that night, I found myself bound and gagged and blindfolded, walloped over the head into unconsciousness for good measure, by them. I was apparently floated away on the river on a hastily-made raft, for I came back to full awareness half adrift on the rocky shore on the part of the river totally unknown to me. Well, and I still lived. Pieces of willow-ropes and broken – decayed – wood were strewn around and under me, marring the pristine environment. I still wonder, until now, if some of them were once Kinslayers. They were certainly savage enough, doing that to me – a decade still from the age of consent. (I do not know who "Kinslayers" really are, though. I just heard a couple of Sindar curse under their breaths in the deserted alley where I played once, after their meeting with Lord Telperinquar.)

I manoeuvred myself so that I could gnaw and tug off the binding around my wrists with my teeth. (Thankfully it was not too tight.) Once my hands were free, I undid the blindfold and gag around my head, and the binding around my ankles. The blow to my head had left me dizzy and disoriented, and I spent half the day sitting just beneath the lapping and bubbling water, trying to regain my equilibrium.

I only could not spend any more moment for that, for one of my worst fears was coming to pass: being ambushed by agents of the Enemy while I am alone and totally defenceless. Orcish noises reached my ears belatedly, and the time I managed to scramble into an upright position without falling was the time the makers of those noises reached me. There was nothing I could use as a weapon. The ropes were too short and soft-ended to be a whip, and the pieces of wood were too decayed to act as a club or a dart. My only form of defence was the river, and the knowledge that agents of the Enemy would not willingly come into or across bodies of water.

So I ran, and ran and ran. Leaping on top of a boulder and stumbling down again to another, always forward and upwards to where I was sure home lay – where Erestor was. – A parody of the merriment I had partaken with Lómiseil the night before. – Arrows sang with a deadly song around me, hungry for my flesh and blood, but I kept running. The riverbank was overgrown with trees on many parts, and I took it fully to my advantage. I did not dare to stop, even just to look behind to see if my pursuers were still close by. There was no mist when I dearly hoped for cover, and I grumbled about selfish Ainur most of the time.

When night was deepening, I finally came across some Elves; armed Elves, youths around my age, former people of Eregion. But they chose to bind me instead of letting me have a moment's rest, ignoring me when I begged and said that my lungs burnt and my legs similarly. They defeated the orcs that trailed after me in pursuit, but then they brought me before Erestor saying that I had betrayed us all.

The wounded, betrayed, disappointed look that Erestor gave me was the worst point of that experience. I broke down right then, opening my spirit to him for inspection, for judgement, without any thought of reservation.

He found me guiltless, apparently; but still, he removed me thereafter to the tiny sanctuary on the riverbank, which he expanded – by the help of several Sindarin warriors under his command – into a small open hut. There I live until now, many twelve-counting of Sun-setting later, mostly alone and as miserable as I was before I became closer to Erestor – and Fimlin, and Elrond, to my never-ending astonishment.

Erestor came to me personally seven Sun-setting after that day, confessing that he had almost condemned me without hearing out my defence first, after listening to the fake report of my captors. He apologised to me, begging, as if he had done the most heinous act thinkable to Elven mind. I could not tell him to stop, and I would not reply, justifying the need of apologies – because I saw none. So, doing what children usually did when words of rebuttal failed them, I stoppered my ears with my hands and uttered a protesting sound. It was embarrassing on its own, and more when I saw Erestor's half-amused half-shocked look, but it was better than his humiliating himself in front of me for no reason. He wound down afterwards, and from that time on he visited me regularly. (And he told me, too, why he had almost acted that way, as if extending the apology that I had rejected. He was of Gondolin once, he said, and was present when one of its own people betrayed them all to death and ruin. – But to be honest with myself, I am much more at peace with myself and what had happened because of the tale.)

At some nights, though, I cannot help but ponder on everything that has happened to me. There is nobody to distract me, and nothing changes during the night, even after Erestor has made it a sort of outlook post for possible threats to our settlement. (Lómiseil never comes back until now, and neither do the other Maiar, although the mist on the other side of the river is always present.) Like tonight, I relive again and again that fateful day, and compare it to my previous life in Eregion – which inevitably leads to the recent losses, and wounds me further.

Yet it is strange indeed that I feel nothing towards who I was in the city. It is as if he was a friend or an acquaintance I grew up with, spoiled but tightly harnessed at once; a firstborn son of a blacksmith artist who loved to find his inspirations from the stars, and an over-intelligent, rambunctious first child of a carver and sculptor; curious and sneaky, mostly alone and nearly inconsequential in a play with other children – in the surface look of it; mostly quiet, but no secrets could be kept away from his attentive ears and eyes for long. – Cúmenel.

I have the sudden urge to laugh hysterically, which I stifle in haste and choppily, leaving small sobs. Who am I? When have I changed? Why? Has he who was named Cúmenel died and entered my body when I was fleeing the carnage? Or have I who have died entered his body instead? Oh, but the thought of my being a houseless fëa–! What do I fear from the Halls of Mandos? An imprisonment to the end of the World? Torture inflicted by Lord Námo for being a rebel? I heard all, listened to all, darkly or contemptuously whispered by the first generation of Exiled Ñoldor. – But I am not a first generation…

Someone touches my shoulder lightly, and holds me when I nearly slide from my perch towards the river below. "Easy there, lad. What makes you so distressed?" That light drawl. I will recognise it anywhere.

"'Tis none of your business, Fimlin," I grit out, automatically, without looking at him. I try to pry his arms off of me, but to no avail.

He chuckles and seats himself easily on the ledge, pinning me flush against his body. "I suppose it would be futile if I were to ask what have you seen or sensed so far?" he murmurs into my right ear, a faint rebuking tone in his voice. "Pity, child, you held such a promise to become a good guard and diplomat at once."

My cheeks redden. He has never told me before about those qualities. Why now? And should he always teas me like this? I am always reduced to a pitiful ten-year-old before him, and I hate it.

"Mind your own business," I spit vehemently.

He tweaks my nose, then scissors my lips shut with his index and middle fingers. "Mind your tongue, little one." He really admonishes me now, although still in a light tone. "And mind also the fact that we are – and have been – working together these past months. You have not improved sufficiently since then."

Gah. Why does he always have to put Mannish terms in his speech?

– "Are you listening, lad?" A sharp tweak on my left ear-tip, which promptly twitches.

I shake my head and resume wriggling. "No," I snap when his fingers slip from my lips. "Now let me go."

"And you are going to go – where?" He is practically mocking me now. It is always like that. – I am going to say something more cutting to retaliate to his infuriating or cornering me. And then he is going to either utter something even more cutting or abruptly goes away with a heavy air of disappointment around him. And I shall be reduced into an even more pitiful wreck afterwards.

But tonight I was deeper into my contemplation when he found me, and I am more confused as a result, and—

"Eh, I asked you what distressed you." – A hand rises up from pinning my arms together against my midriff, wipes at my left cheek, and comes up coated with a glittering substance. – "Now are you going to tell me or not?"

Mild and seeming uncaring in utterance, but I can hear the urgency that lies beneath the inquiry. Oh, how tempting it is to just spill everything out to him, however vexing he is otherwise and in other times… But will he ever understand me? Will I accept empty comforts, or – otherwise – indifference?

My hróa seems to decide for me, as it lets out a shuddering breath and crumbles into the body and limbs that have previously been just seen by it as a form of restriction. I do not cry – no, I weep no more. But my spirit burns with all the emotions and confusion contained within; and it hurts so much, beyond words or gestures to convey.

Who am I? What am I?

The noises of the river recede slowly but surely, replaced by those of the nightlife in a peaceful forest. And then words, murmured words, furtive and urgent. I know those voices…

Back to the river again, back to the same place. Another voice speaks up, then. "A relapse? What triggered it, this time?"

Oh, I am a mentally unstable person – am I?

"I was just asking what was wrong. And he just crumbled. I suppose he is confused about his identity. He kept asking who and what he is, before I went to fetch you." Fimlin, in his report mode: blunt, crisp, unfeeling, brittle.

"You did not stifle him again, did you?" Erestor. Definitely Erestor.

"No, I did not. He did it to himself. And that is more frightening." – Fimlin can be frightened, and by my doing directly or indirectly?

A hand checks my neck pulse and breathing rate, bigger and clumsier than an average Elf's. A defeated sigh. "Ai! He has withdrawn into himself. Now what can I do? He is here, but not here, and he can spend many seasons in this state if he is not drawn out."

Erestor leaves. I want to call to him, to grab any part of his body to prevent him from going, but unable to. The non-Elf is right. But why?

Fimlin's calloused fingers rakes through my hair, restless, jittery. But then he stiffens—

And the angry yipping of a young fox reverberates in my left ear. I let out an involuntary yelp, jerking wildly, nearly slipping away from Fimlin's hold.

"Erestor!" Two voices. They are just as shocked as I am, then.

But the culprit just chuckles grimly, and pulls me away from Fimlin's weakened grasp. "I did what I had to do," says he, while manoeuvring my body in his lap. He refuses to answer, though, when both Fimlin and Elrond barrage him with questions pertaining to his unconventional, unthinkable technique. – So I am not the only person he keeps secrets from…

He puts the young fox into my hands after calming it down with a few notes of his wordless song, as if bidding me to play with it. I do just that, but only for a moment. He attracts my attention by tilting up my chin, then.

He says quietly, "Now, who are you?"

I cease playing at once. The young fox paws whingingly at the back of my right hand, but I ignore it. The feeling of deep, painful betrayal wells in me. Around us, Fimlin and Elrond have also gone deathly silent.

He looks into my eyes, then, and murmurs in an even quieter tone, "You are still he who fled Eregion with a few lucky others. Do not let anyone – including yourself – question you about it. But now you are no longer only he, and I suppose the violent rejection of your former friends and acquaintances solidified it. Tell me, have I erred?"

I shake my head once, slowly, my shoulders trembling.

"You have erased your previous personality, whether you are aware of it or not, wishing to separate yourself from your folks. Tell me, have I erred, – Cúmenel?"

I would have killed the guiltless fox if Fimlin had not quickly torn it from my convulsing hands. My breathing quickens and becomes heavier. My vision is clouded by a red haze.

And then my knuckles connect with what feels like someone's jaw, someone's flesh, and it hurts. The shock clears my vision, and it now presents me Erestor's blue-grey orbs, wide in surprise. I utter a keening sound, pierced by what my fury-induced hróa has done, and try to break free from his hold. – I have struck him. I have struck my guardian. How dare I? What has possessed me?

It… Sauron…

Lómiseil. – Doleful twilight-coloured eyes staring into my spirit, pleading, comforting. Little tongue licking the side of my lips. Little hands stroking my temples, my eyelids.

I blink. Erestor is staring at me still, his countenance unreadable. All the same, I can feel miniscule arms winding around my neck as far as they can go, and a comfortable weight hugging my torso.

I look down. But Erestor catches my chin and holds it up. "Have you ever angered him before?" His gaze is shrewd, penetrating. A part of me rises up in renewed anger, yet now I recognise it for what it is.

I have been contaminated. I am tainted.

When? How?

– Malicious intent, nauseating gaze, cloying words… Glittering blue eyes like shards of ice and glass, poisonous like a snake's bite.

Running, running away. – Words muttered behind my back; darkness, unlight; choking, grating. And then obliviousness, missing its trance-like quality. –

A soft whinging wail in my left ear. A tiny body squirms against my torso, pounding my shoulders weakly with two little fists.

"Little one!" Erestor, scared.

I blink rapidly and shake my head as if to get rid of water from my ears. Looking down, I still see nobody clinging to my body like a limpet. Looking up, I am caught in a whirlwind of emotions in Erestor's gaze, in his eyes surrounded by taught, pallid skin.

"I did not hit you again, did I?" I rasp. My throat is too dry.

"No." It is Fimlin who answers, from right behind me. (I start slightly.) "You just bucked madly like a wild boar in a net trap. What were you recalling? It seemed full of darkness."

– Three glinting rings in a velvet box. So powerful, but so pure, coveted by the ice-eyed traitor lord…

"He is going to come for them."

Brilliant grey eyes widened. (So like Lord Curufinwë, they said, and Lord Fëanáro his father.) But he did not say anything to that. Only a blessing. "May all that is good protect you."

And the next day three messengers rode out in great haste and secrecy. And I no longer found the three rings in the velvet box, when I snuck back into his personal storage that Sun-setting in my nightly escapade to entertain myself. –

I bury my face in the nook of Erestor's neck, breathing raggedly. If I could grow wings, I would fly to safety – wherever it is in this war-torn land. But I cannot tell him that, not wanting to upset him more.

But perhaps, I do not need words for it.

"Soon, little one. As soon as we can get you to Mithlond."

The Grey Havens. The Teleri's dwelling here across the sea. The harbour promising passage to the Undying Lands…

I clutch at his tunic, not wanting to hope. Hope hurts too much if – when – it is bashed against the sharp rocks of reality.

He says no more. Maybe he realises the same thing, or maybe not. We only stir when dawn lights the sky, chasing away the shadows, and birds begin to sing their sweet songs. The darkness seems so far away…


	9. Chapter 8

**Part 8**

I meander along the riverbank under the rays of Rána, collecting stones for a more permanent dwelling farther from the water. Winter is approaching fast, and spring follows. And with spring, there is the snowmelt flooding from the mountains up above.

At any rate, it is what Erestor says, backed up by Fimlin and Elrond. Their hinted backgrounds, that they lived in the mountains once, make me inclined to trust their judgement.

If I do not trust them, I have nobody else to trust, anyhow. Lately I interact only with the three of them, and I have begun to see them as closer than not-strangers. (Perhaps friends? Or acquaintances? No, closer, but not family – yet – either.) The fact that two of them are Sindar (and one is my constant bickering partner) and the last is a Half-Elf is not lost on me, and it is a source of internal ironic humour oftentimes. I do not often meet them, given their duties and my being confined mostly to the surroundings of my riverbank dwelling, but they always set aside time for me – in a subtle way usually, which I will only realise long after their departure back to their routines.

Erestor, especially, seems to pay more attention to me, even more than his usual before the failed reconciliation and what I dub "the predawn incident." It is more about his duties of being my guardian, keeping me fed and safe and comfortable. (And now I can no longer deny to myself that I am his ward, or wonder if I am really one to him.) But there is something… more… in the way he cares for me, something that tells me he does not do it lightly.

Neither of us ever talks about the predawn incident after the fact, but small conversations about lands beyond this hidden vale circulate amongst us at times. It is never beyond a conjecture, an idea, but I am sure someday I shall be shipped away. That saddens me, surprisingly because I shall be then separated from those who have been taking care of me so far. Maybe they have indeed grown on me…

I halt my feet in a small pebbly dip within a formation of three large boulders. Something or somebody is parting the mist on the other side of the river. (If I had not been admiring the mysterious, silvery veil of roiling substance, I would not notice.) Now comes a hard choice: Should I confront the trespasser alone, or should I fetch reinforcements? The night patrols are spread thin along the borders of the valley, though, and it will take time rounding them up. (My dwelling is only the base of operation, as they say, and it is mostly empty during our patrol.) But I do not think I can face the intruder alone, unarmed no less.

Well, there are many fistful, hard stones in the root-woven bag on my back though… They can serve as weapon for now. A crude and primitive weapon, yes, but no less effective. (If I were to believe the old, old Avar that I met by chance just outside Eregion's borders, who told me about his days in Cuiviénen despite my taunting his not-Ñoldorin lineage.)

I crouch down low among the boulders and wait. My senses are alert – to the point of nearly burning, even. Then comes the small splash of water amidst the natural noises of the river, and I perk up even more. My left hand strays to the opening of the bag behind me, dipping in and coming out with a roughly-rounded stone.

A small figure is wading across the currents, becoming bigger steadily, approaching my hideout. Doubt gnaws at my resolve, then. The stranger's gait and firmness against the river's formidable flow remind me of Erestor, oddly, although I know that the said nér is currently inland, managing the refugees to give Elrond reprieve. (Small turmoils have never ceased occurring after my brief trial, after all the refugees were stripped of weapons or possible weapons to prevent any chance of bloody fights.)

Erestor never talks of any relatives though…

Still, my hand lowers to my knees, and my senses return to their usual rate of awareness, distorted somewhat by the uncertainty I am feeling.

The mist coagulates around the stranger, hiding him from clear view. I curse inwardly. My heartbeat picks up in tempo again. An ambush is quite possible now, whoever that intruder turns out to be later, and I absolutely hate ambushes – harmless or otherwise. I shall not help myself any by sitting waiting for it to come upon me, though.

As silently as I can, I lower my bag into the dip and crawl out of it, sidling farther inland. The stone is a welcome comfort in my left fist, but I do not know how effective it can be later. (Probably not, given how the event is turning.) I can feel the stranger's sharp gaze on me, but I do not know where he is, and I hate to strike without challenge. (It is just… not right.)

I crawl onto firm land, at last.

And as quickly as a striking snake, a pair of strong arms wrap around my torso and midriff, hauling me upright. They pin my arms to my body when I flail, and a large hand gags my mouth before I can scream for help. The stone is lost in the brief scuffle, and with that, my last defence. My heart pumps faster, and my breathing becomes more laboured by the moment as I struggle futilely in my assailant's iron grip. – I will not cry. No, no, I will not cry…

The cold, sharp edge of a metal blade presses against my neck, not deep enough to draw blood but certainly close enough to incite more fear into me. I ruthlessly quell down the urge to whimper and beg for mercy, trying to distract myself from my predicament. I was not raised to be a beggar.

But my parents never considered a what-if: What if begging is the only option to survive?

I renew my struggle after a moment's pause, but my assailant just tightens his old on me. Somehow, without breaking his hold on me or letting the dagger graze my neck, he creeps along the riverbank.

It is only to search for better coverage, I find out later, as he stows the both of us within a tight ring of bushes. He never lets go of me even so, and his dagger is ever trained against my neck.

He chuckles, then, low and dangerous. "Enough playing the hero now?" he whisper in a mocking tone. If I were not so afraid, I would boil into a rage. Still, I try to loosen my jaw a little to bite his hand – without avail. How comes an Elf be so large and so mean?

"You blared out like the Sun, you know. Any dimwit could easily see you. Whatever were they thinking, putting an incapable boy in charge?"

I would say that I am alone this side of the river, if I could speak. But more than that, I would really like to aim my fist at his jeering mouth. I am tired of being seen as incapable in my whole life.

"You could have struck me with your little stone, you know. Or are you too afraid to be a kinslayer? To proud, as it were…"

I am not a savage. No, I shall not fall into his bait.

– His grip slackens a little. I twist around as much as I can, wriggling to free my limbs. Anger surges in me when, effortlessly, he tightens his hold again. He is playing with me!

"What? Do you think anyone who captures you will not toy with you for a while?"

Tears of frustration well in my eyes. I attempt to blink them away, yet they only roll down my cheeks. All the harder, as I finally lose my composure and convulse, bashing my head against any part of him I can reach, not minding the dagger that scrapes my skin before it is hastily drawn back.

He pins me to the ground, then, and works open my jaw with a hand. He trickles down a burning liquid into my mouth with the other hand, and uses the same hand afterwards to massage my throat. I swallow in reflex, and he makes me drink some more.

My head clears gradually, in sync with the amount of liquid forced into my body. Then he presses a point on my neck, and I lose consciousness.

When I regain full awareness, I find myself enclosed snugly in a bedroll, laid out over moss and freshly-gathered leaves. Confusion quickly clouds my mind, as I also realise that I am no longer garbed in Erestor's tunic and trousers (which have been quite worn and tattered after long, constant use). I have forgotten how "comfortable" really means.

Rána is still high in the sky, so I assume I have not been asleep for too long. – But have I really been just asleep? Where am I? Who has put me into these attire and bedding?

The recent event comes back into my bleary mind just as the culprit comes into view. I sit up and try to lunge at him, but the bedroll tangles around my arms. My cheeks flush with impotent anger.

He crouches before me and kisses my brow with unexpected tenderness. I would reel back if he were not holding my upper body firmly in his embrace. He tilts my neck sidewise, then, and traces a finger along an over-sensitive line on it. I buck, yelping.

"I am sorry for that," he says quietly into my ear, before kissing the spot as if it could chase the pain away. How old does he think I am?

– "I did not mean to hurt you." But he has. "And if you retaliate now, I shall not be able to return to Lindon, and thus be of more use to you and the others." – Wha?

He frees me from the bedroll and sits down on it instead, bringing me onto his lap. I try to break free from his hold again, to no avail. He is too strong, stronger even than Erestor.

He smiles knowingly at me, as if perceiving my thoughts. I look up, glaring.

But then I have to do a double take. His face is so alike to Erestor's that I can believe it if they are close relatives or even brothers. The only thing largely differing him from Erestor is the colour of his eyes – bright blue, and shining with pinpricks of silver as if stars in midsummer night.

He is the intruder that I spotted from the riverbank.

He toyed with me, taunted me, hurt me – in spite of his excuse.

I jerk back suddenly, freeing a hand and punching his jaw, hard.

He blinks, staring at me bemusedly for the fraction of a moment, then lets out a loud guffaw. – It is my turn to blink with incomprehention. He is just as confusing as Erestor.

"Little snake, be careful with your little teeth," he admonishes me lightly, while rubbing at his bruised jaw. Grinning lopsidedly, he resumes, "If you were in Lindon, I could train you to use those little fists of yours to better use. Not that I advise you to pick fights, though." And his gaze on me becomes sterner, more serious. "Violence is not the only option, and sometimes it is not an option at all. Putting yourself in someone else's situation can help you in determining which action you should take."

I look away. How has it turned to a small lecture on my actions now? He is truly just as confusing as Erestor. – And apparently, also just as enigmatic.

"Who are you?" I mutter sullenly at the pack sitting nearby, well-made and new but looking to have been put to much use recently.

"Well, it is a pack, – obviously," he chuckles. I glare sulkily up at him. He grins. "Ah, that is much better. Look at the person if you are conversing with him, lad."

"Who are you, then?" I snap, glaring into his laughing eyes, still bristling.

"Who do you think I am?" he retorts mildly, now smiling a secretive smile.

I look away and clench my jaw. Now I see that he is a blend between Erestor and Fimlin. He is certainly as annoying, frustrating, and irritating as the latter ellon.

Well, perhaps, somewhat like Elrond too. He is rocking me back and forth in his arms now in a similar silent, thoughtful air around him. – A type of quiet I am tempted to ruin.

And I do just that, saying cheekily, "A nobody, who has intruded on someone else's land uninvited."

"Well, an intrusion does not need any invitation, little one," he laughs. "That would make the point moot."

Well, I never counted his ability to be just as cheeky.

I want to say more, to defend myself, but he chooses this very moment to pick up something which has been out of my sight and stuff it in my mouth. I gag and swot at his stomach, but it does not make him let go. In the end, defeated, I lick the thing, trying to gauge what it is. –

A small strip of smoked beef. My eyes widen. (It might be a comical sight, if I were looking at the same expression on someone else's face, I imagine.) It has been a season since I last tasted it, but it feels like an age to me.

My captor apparently finds my look amusing too, because he chuckles and… tweaks my nose. Is he Fimlin in disguise? Gah!

And it seems that he finds my indignation even more amusing. His body convulses in silent laughter – which I guess would otherwise be a deep belly chortle.

He feeds me more of the smoked beef, though. I am slightly appeased.

He asks me what my name is and how I am, but I do not answer. He says he is called Erin sometimes, then, and I say that I am more or less fine. – An item for another. It is a fair trade, to me. – I know how to trade, at least, if I do not know of anything else. I have been trained in trading since I was very small, to help sell my parents' wares.

I ask him again about who he is, when it seems that he is not going to feed me any more of the smoked beef. And he asks back, "Do I remind you of someone? Do I know him also?" It feels like a sly question to me, and I frown reproachfully at him.

He grins wryly. "Why only now, little snake? You should have used that unique talent of yours when I ambushed you."

My frown automatically turns into yet another glare, but my heart is not fully in it. He is right. I could break his façade earlier, spoiling his fun in toying with me, if only I were less panicked and emotional.

He gives me a grim, approving smile. Suddenly he no longer looks like a goofy-but-dangerous man to me, but a regal-and-dangerous one. I shrink away, but cannot go far, as his arms still pin me in place.

"It is one of a novice's first lessons in becoming a warrior," he says quietly. "Whoever put you in charge should have at least told you that."

I bit my lower lip. My reflexive reaction is to defend Erestor. But strangely, the words cannot pass my tongue. A part of me cheers at Erin's disapproval at his method of teaching me (which is actually nonexistent), saying that it only proves the incompetency of Grey people, and it wars with the larger part of me that supports Erestor. At last, however, I manage to get out a word. "Busy."

"He is busy?" His tone has chilled considerably. I really wish to escape this living confinement now, put a distance between this insulting person and myself.

"You just do not understand," I bite back. "He has to manage everything alone, and he can barely do that with everyone else not cooperating." Erestor could spend a little more time with me, though, still…

Erin looks up briefly to the sky, then stares back at me grimly. "The second lesson, little one: Do not let out any possible information to anyone you do not really know, especially in this dark and dangerous time."

My chest constricts with a sudden frost. It only loosens slightly when he continues in a lighter tone, "You can trust me. But pay heed to what I have said so far. Your life may well depend on it, and also those you guard."

Those I guard? Who am I guarding? I only do what Erestor asks of me, in lieu of anything else I can do to pass the time.

He arches an eyebrow when I protest to his statement, saying almost exactly what I have been thinking about except for Erestor's name. (Now he no longer looks like Erestor; more… Ñoldorin, so to say.) He says nothing to it, though, and instead asks, "Are you here with your parents or guardians, or are you totally alone?"

"My parents are dead. I am now Erestor's ward," I mutter, my eyes riveted on the swan-on-blue-field broach he wears on his travelling cloak. (It is Lord Ñolofinwë's coat-of-arms, as far as I remember. Is Erin of his House, then?)

"Erestor?" he repeats, suddenly interested. I look up at once. "How does he look like?" he asks eagerly when I nod.

"Like you," I answer at once, regretting myself right afterwards. The words sound ludicrous even in my ears.

But he does not even blink in surprise or bafflement. If my senses are not deceiving me, I would say he in fact grows more eager.

"Of what House is he?" he continues. I gape. A moment later, deciding that I can ask Erestor for myself when we have some time alone, I shake my head to the inquiry. I really do not know, and I have assumed that Erestor is only a passing Sinda; perhaps the head of a clan of the Grey, but certainly not of any House – like… a Ñoldorin House.

He lets go of me, then, and shifts away to reach for the pack. (I assume it is his. But then again, if it is his, and judging from his competence in dealing with me, why does it look new – only recently used? He must have travelled far and wide and experienced many things…)

A glint in his hand draws my attention. It is another broach, as he reveals it to me. But this time it bears not the embossed shape of a swan. It is a tiny, oval silver shield overall, embedded with small pieces of white and blue and grey crystals to form a blossoming fountain. "See that?" he murmurs. "It is the coat-of-arms of my cousin's House. His name is also Erestor, and his look matches mine – or so people say. He was once from Gondolin."

Gondolin. Erestor – my Erestor – was also from Gondolin once, or so he claimed. I tell Erin that, and a spark of hope lights up his bright eyes even more. "Would you please give this to him?" he asks, while fumbling to release his swan broach from his cloak. Putting it into my hand, he continues, "Tell him that it is from Erin of Lindon, and that Erin misses Eros' company very much."

I nod mutely. When he pins the new broach to his cloak, though, I point a finger at it and ask, "What House does it symbolise, then?" I have forgotten many titbits of Gondolin I learnt from my tutors; he deemed that realm inconsequencial, and I followed his lead. But now I rue it.

He smiles. "The House of the Fountain. Erestor's House. In a way, it is also mine."

I feel quite dumbstruck. – Son of Ecthelion… The House of the Fountain…

"Is he not a Grey?" I try to convince myself still. (My Erestor, a member of the House forming practically the bulk of Lord Turukáno's guards; the son of the House's head no less? I wish I did not remember this bit.)

"It was a House of the Grey, as you put it, back then in Gondolin." The chill seeps back into his voice. "But there was also a House of the Green there. So what point do you wish to make out of it, actually?"

Honestly, I do not know what point I would like to make. My education is truly rather lacking (now that I realise it, and admit it to myself) when it comes to the more recent history of my people. My parents liked to talk about the glory of the Years of the Trees, and spoke little outside it. My history tutor made me remember all the Elven realms of old in the sunken Beleriand, and also take notes on which were the ones built by the Ñoldor, but he did not expand on them. "It was our time of darkness," he was fond to say, "but now it is much brighter, and we should not dwell in that gloomy past." And now I am just embarrassing myself (and offending Erin) more and more with my lack of knowledge.

I sigh and, admitting defeat, mumble, "I did not wish to offend you. I am sorry for my ignorance. I would like to learn, if you would teach me." It is the right phrasing as taught by my tutors. (Drilled by them, in fact.) I hope it is enough for Erin. It is already hard to bend my pride slightly to allow an apology – as true and needed as it is.

He snorts, as if wanting to say, "It is an understatement." I bristle silently. Angering him will not yield me much use, I tell myself, and that is the only thing preventing me from lashing back at him.

"That explains many things," he mutters. I glower. The way he says it, it is as if I am a complete idiot.

He asks me, then, "What were you thinking when you saw me wading across the ford?"

I want to say that I did not know it was even a ford, but refrain from doing so. He does not need to get more excuses to call me a dimwit. So, instead, I mutter, "You seemed like Erestor. AndIdunwannabeakinslayer." He seems quite dangerous, if I really pay attention to the flare of his aura. If not, I would not even consider answering the question after he has insulted me so.

But still, it does not seem to be enough to him. "Sorry?"

"What?" I mumble, sidling away from him meanwhile.

Apparently he perceives my subtle motion all the same, for he scoops me up back into his lap in one swift strike, and immobilises me more firmly than before. "You know, I wonder if Erestor felt as irritated as I am to you now, when he was raising me," he grumbles lowly into my ear, velvet over steel. I stiffen, surprised about the bit of information he is giving me. Yet nonetheless I realise I have fallen into the same predicament as I did earlier tonight, and rue it bitterly.

I refuse to rise to his bait this time… and he smirks in approval to my silence. Now I wonder if anyone can be more irritating than he is; a blend of the three most irritating people I have ever known.

"It is good that you have some control over your actions," he says, "but please do it in a more dignified way some other time. Sulking is not going to endear your opponent any. – It will instead give the person more fuel to stoke up your anger."

Finally, something I can really put to use. If I knew about this before, Fimlin would have a harder time teasing me…

"As for your reaction to my arrival…" He stares right into my eyes. "My likeness to Erestor should not deter you. In fact, you should be more wary about me. An agent of the Enemy, when it can, takes the guise of a person's loved one to lure him or her into its trap."

My shoulders tense. His information, accumulated with the previous pieces he has given me, only makes me more uncomfortable. Through his eyes, then, the world must be quite a horrible place to live. (Then why does he still exist?) But Arda, or Endórë as it is, is not only a place of enemies and slaughter and mistrust, is it? The river is still swift, the forest is still green, and there are still people like Erestor and Fimlin and Elrond – and Erin himself. Why should he be so pessimistic?

He must note my hesitation, for he raises his eyebrows in a silent challenge, but he does not otherwise comment on my reaction to his warnings. He moves on, instead. "And what did I hear, about kinslayer?"

I would wince if I could. (His limbs bind mine quite tightly.) And I would turn my eyes away also if I could, for his stare bores into my soul like the coldly-glittering blade of Erestor's sword – Lord Ñolofinwë's once, or so Fimlin said.

"Do you know what a kinslayer is?"

I shake my head. I would say "savage," yet the deadliness of his voice suggests a darker meaning – darker even than that.

He smiles, then; a cold, sharp smile which, if added with malice and a desire to torture someone or eat someone alive, would put him as the fake Lord Annatar in my mind-frame.

"What did you say about 'kinslayer' then, little one?"

I shake my head, but open my mouth all the same on spying a feral gleam in his blue eyes – formerly so benign. "I do not want to be a kinslayer," I stammer. (Well, at least the words are out now.)

He nods, still in the chill and rigid manner he has morphed into. "It is good," he whispers, and in it I detect an old pain. I am moved to comfort him, to take some of the resurfacing pain away from him, but I do not know how – or even if I should.

His smile turns sad and melancholy all of a sudden. I am left staring dumbly at his face for a moment, before I realise what I am doing and hastily compose myself.

"Even without the bracelet." He is murmuring to himself. But then his attention returns to me, and he regards me with the same deadly tone as before. Deadly… dead.

"You do not know what being a kinslayer really means, do you?"

I shake my head.

He laughs mirthlessly. His hold loosens slightly. I use the chance to swiftly coil myself into a ball. My spirit feels so, so cold…

"It is when an Elf slays another Elf, unprovoked, in the heights of anger or vengeance, or simply spite. It is a willing act, not born out of defence.

"Our race breeds slowly. Thus it is possible that one is murdering his or her own kin during the act.

"But we are not born to do that, little one. It damages one's fëa, even when it is done in defence. Even, when we do not mean to do that."

So cold… So cold… I cannot bear it. No, I shall never say that word again; never. So cold. Please let me go…

The rim of a flask is put against my lips. I open my mouth instantly, hoping for something to soothe the chill. Let it be that cordial he gave me before…

The flask is tilted up slightly. The liquid inside trickles into my mouth. I gulp it down greedily. It is indeed the cordial. – But it cannot soothe the chill caused by his words. I crave for more…

But the flask is drawn away from me, then. I whimper.

He does not say anything, does not even apologise for what he has said. He tucks my head into the nook between his neck and shoulder and holds me close, rubbing my back and the back of my head.

He does not need words.


	10. Chapter 9

**Part 9**

Erestor keeps coaxing me about why, according to him, I have changed so much. And I keep denying him. There is no sense talking about my secrets with him when he does not return the favour. I only return the barrage with my own when I am finally tired of it.

And to my surprise and astonishment, he does not seem to mind it. Several Sun-settings after Erin's abrupt arrival and departure, he at last corners me in front of my dwelling and insists that we need to talk. (I retort cheekily to that, saying we have been talking since I was lucid enough for it. But he just smirks to that, and says that it is one of the topics we need to discuss now.)

It is how, at this moment, I am submerged neck-deep in the river, lodged between two giant boulders, with Erestor standing half afloat in front of me. The coming winter makes the water even more freezing than before, yet it lessens the swiftness of the currents a tiny bit. – And it distracts me, much.

"Now, what do you wish to know from me so that you will give me – right afterwards – truthful answers to my questions?"

I would say "Nothing." But Erestor looks quite stern now, and he has never been this blunt. (It should be only Fimlin's area.) He quails me at times like this, as ashamed as I am to admit it even to myself.

The space between he and I ripples slightly, although there is neither fish nor bit of wood visible as the culprit. The currents there continue to churn a little, as if a small body is treading water on its surface…

Erestor pokes my nose. I squeak. – I would swear that I am hearing a young child laugh now. Is Lómiseil here? Why is he teasing me?

I utter a small whinging noise. Erestor raises his eyebrows, undeterred. I sigh. "All right." Oh, I will regret this…

Erestor does not waste time. "Well, what do you want to know, then? I shall not answer it if I think it will endanger myself or other people, or if it is not my tale to tell. You can ask me another question, then." Perhaps noting my mutinous look, he hastily adds, "No, no, you cannot do the same."

"Why?" I grouse. Only then I realise how obvious the answer can be.

He seems to come to the same conclusion, because he smirks and says in a matter-of-fact tone, "I am your elder, and I have travelled everywhere long before you were born. Subsequently, I have more secrets than what you have gathered thus far. – Unless, you took to snooping around as a habit?"

I reach out a hand, wanting to shake his shoulder in the height of my indignation. But he is quicker. Dipping underwater for a moment, he surfaces farther away from me and resumes his monologue as if nothing has hindered him.

"I have a feeling that those secrets I have been pursuing from you are not dire or terribly personal. If not, I would do almost anything to get them out of you." A brief quirk of his lips. "I have met many people with a trading mind-set such as you, and I do it myself sometimes. You have been doing this because you have not seen any gain from answering me truthfully, have you not?"

I want to glare at him. But then he will know that he has riled me up, and I cannot afford that. I have to act more indifferently to get the best out of this hard bargain.

He dips underwater again, but does not swiftly resurface. I become restless when two twelve-counting have elapsed and his head has not yet broken the water. Where is he? Has aught happened to him?

I feel the currents parting at level with my midriff, then, – and it is too late. A pair of familiar hands slip between the boulders and my waist, and tickle my sides mercilessly. I want to kick him, but Erestor seems to have anticipated the thought and uses my feet as his anchor. I try to grab his hair or body, but the currents deflect my hands away.

Before I manage to free myself from the boulders, he has returned to his earlier position, smirking triumphantly at me. (With his eyes bright and his cheeks flushing like that, he appears yéni younger than – I suppose – he is.)

"Are you done whinging, again?" he chuckles. I glare ferociously at him, unable to hold it back any longer. I do not know how many times he has used that dratted sentence on me thus far, but I absolutely despise it.

He does not allow me to grumble overlong, though, in spite of his playful front. "Now, what do you wish to ask of me?"

I have been waiting for this moment since a season ago. And now that I am living in it, I am struck speechless by the multitude of questions I wish to ask of him. The list of questions, subconsciously but carefully made and maintained, crumbles into meaningless pieces on the face of consequence: that I have to answer a hard question from him, truthfully and immediately, for the price. It is too high a price. But I cannot worm myself out of this corner of the bargain.

There is one question that always tickles my curiosity, though…. "How old are you, exactly?"

He seems to fall deeply into thought. When he returns to himself again, an odd gleam enters his eyes. "Sixteen long-years and seventeen Sun-years," says he.

"I am not deceiving you," he adds, his voice matching his solemn countenance. "That is my exact age in the Years of the Sun. I was born during the year one-hundred-and-ten in the First Age."

My disbelief does not let up. He seems so much older. He may even have been born before the Exiled Ñoldor came to Beleriand – either from the Great Sea or the Grinding Ice. Maybe he means "sixteen Tree-years" actually, in his saying? But no, that cannot be it…

"What is it – that is too hard to understand?" Wry, slightly reproachful. "After all, you say you are forty Sun-years old, and yet you behave more like a twenty-year-old oftentimes." Firmer, now. "If you are finished doubting me… I wish to know who gave you that bedroll and those writing tools. You cannot find them in the wilderness, and yet you got them overnight."

And the dreaded moment comes also… I have tarried from relaying Erin's message to Erestor only so that I can have a big secret to keep from Erestor, while he has kept so many secrets from me. And now I am quite afraid to find out what his reaction to my petty grudge will be.

"Another question, please?" I plead. He shakes his head – as expected. I slump, virtually hanging between the two boulders. I am really doomed now.

Lómiseil – or who I think it is – is still paddling the water between us, creating small circular splashes. It is much more interesting watching him than staring at Erestor's forbidding countenance…

Erestor's hands come into my field of vision, directly over the small turbulence on the water surface, and retract as if bearing a moving burden. My eyes widen with indignation. "Release him!" I lunge away from the boulders that have been flanking me, reaching out towards him, towards his hands lifted above his head.

"Who is he, then?" The deceivingly-mild tone he often uses sounds cloying to my ears now. "Answer me, if you would not answer the other yet."

The body of a little boy materialises out of thin air between his outstretched hands. But Erestor does not look surprised by it. In fact, he seems to have expected the phenomenon to happen.

Lómiseil is weeping silently and flailing his tiny limbs in wild arcs. I spy clear liquid running down his flushed cheeks, glittering in Vása's departing light. The view stokes my anger into a level I have previously never thought I would reach. It burns my soul with heated blood, and it wants blood for the price of hurting the little boy – my little boy.

– No, not my little boy. He is not mine. He does not like it.

– No, he is mine. He is always mine. He will like it. I am much better than Erestor.

– He will despise me…

– He will not despise us.

My vision is now fully red. Grey and brown and glowing orange blind me. All my senses are on fire.

– "Begone, Sauron!"

– Who is he to command us? Weak, meek Grey. We should crush his throat with our foot. Worthless thing.

– I am worthless. He is not.

– No, he is. He is.

– "Fight it, child, fight it! Expel him!"

A baby, not yet quite a child, wails in distress.

– Another weak thing. We shall quench his fire. Let him speak no more and clod our world. The world we shall reign in…

– I do not like reigning the world. And you are not going to touch him!

– We, my dear, we…

– I am not you! Whoever you are….

– I am you, my dear, and we shall reign together. That little thing has disturbed us for too long, following us wherever we go…

– I… We… I… I…

– Yes, we, my dear, we… We shall stoke all those little people into a frenzy, then this little valley shall be ours… Quench the last of the Water and cleeve the mixbreed… We would like to take revenge on the vexing lump of dirt also, yes?

– "Fight it, child! Fight it! For me, for Fimlin, for Elrond… Fight it! Fight it for your secret friend. Fight it for Lómeseldo…"

– Ah, see? He has betrayed us, that filthy Grey. He knows who the little thing is right from the start.

– Yes, he does. He betrays me… us…

– Yes, he does. And the little thing is not worth our exulted heritage also. That name, a Usurper gave it to him. Ha! We shall not be compared with a Usurper, shall we?

– "Little one, listen to me. Listen to the water. Listen to Lómeseldo…"

– We are not little!

– No, we are not.

– The water is filthy.

– The water is… No it is not! It is swift, clear… The river…

– That stupid lump is not as great as our master.

– No, I have no master.

– We had. But now he is gone, thrown out by the wicked, stupid lumps. We shall reign until he returns. He is going to give us a great reward for our service…

Tiny limbs are latching around my torso. So pure, so white… I open my mouth. My throat burns. I can hear nothing. The white is so blinding against the darkness around me; and so, so scorching.

– Let go!

– Let go!

– I cannot stand it…

– We shall not let ourselves be defiled!

But the torture continues… Burning, burning…

Burning a path through the darkness… Lighting up…

I can hear a… thing… shriek in my mind; slimy and filthy, trying to latch onto my soul and sip from it.

A wordless song. Sweet, pure melodies. The Singer…

The cloud of dirt and ashes parts from my vision. And there I see Erestor, trembling but singing still, and his desperate eyes bore into mine. Yearning, loving.

`Let go, little one. Let go, if you can no longer bear it. We shall meet again.`

– Let go…

– No, we shall not! This is our rightful place!

The song pours into me from the path opened by the pure white light. The parasite inside my mind and soul recedes with another shriek of dismay, terror and utter loathing.

– Vengeance! We shall have vengeance!

– We shall not. And you go now.

`Go, little one, go. Listen to your new guardian… We shall meet again. We shall meet again. I love you.`

Arms envelop my fëa, big and small. And a deep voice is calling me, summoning me, promising safety and comfort from wily parasites.

I flee my broken hróa. The larger arms slip away from me, but the smaller ones never leaves me – guiding me, accompanying me.

But the parasite is chasing us eager to latch onto my spirit and drain it. Like the Trees…

`We are safe.` Small voice peeping, rejoicing, almost gleeful.

A man is standing before a gate, nearer and nearer. He opens his arms, then, and I sink into them gratefully.

The parasite does not dare near us. And then it is chased away, banished, by people in bright lights.

I smile at the action, then look up at my saviour. My new guardian; for a while, until I am reunited with Erestor again.

`Lord Námo.`


End file.
